David Dastmalchian's New Movie Is a Sci-Fi Horror Flick With a 'Twilight' Star That Doesn't Deserve Your Attention

The Cure is the latest film from director Nancy Leopardi, who has been producing low-budget genre movies for nearly 20 years. It stars Samantha Cochran, David Dastmalchian, and Ashley Greene.

The story of an orphan girl adopted by a wealthy biotech couple sounds promising, but the movie falls short of even the "so-so" category. It's formulaic and bland, redeemed neither by its subject matter nor its star-studded cast.

What Is 'The Cure' About?

Ally was adopted as a child by Jeff and Georgia Braun, the wealthy founders of a biotech company. She was taken from a poor neighborhood to the luxurious city of Malibu and soon was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease.

Because of her fragile health, she has been confined to the mansion and dependent on a diet of pills created by her mother in the lab for years.

One day, while her parents were away presenting another startup, Ally slipped away to the coast and met Brooke. Her new friend quickly noticed that something was wrong and encouraged Ally to question the motifs of the overprotective adults.

'The Cure' Is Social Criticism That Lacks Form and Substance

Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer, the writers of Steven Soderbergh's Unsane, wrote the screenplay. Last time, the director's experimental form and impeccable vision saved their rather straightforward script. This time, however, Leopardi fails to find a worthy framework for the project.

The director clumsily contrasts the wealthy Brauns with Brooke, who lives in a small apartment with her disabled brother. Then, she quickly jots down notes about Silicon Valley residents' morbid obsession with biohacking.

She criticizes the elite for destroying the environment and casts aspersions on the US healthcare system. However, beyond the dispassionate recitation of facts, there is no moral or coherent commentary.

The director's energy is already exhausted by the end of the first act. A beautiful series of shots of a California beach instills a sense of foreboding, but the tension becomes increasingly bloodless.

Leopardi doesn't believe the material lends itself well to other formats, such as cynical neo-noir, shameless satire, or uncompromising trash.

'The Cure' Brings Nothing New to the Table

Low budget and simplicity aren't necessarily flaws. Consider Brian Yuzna's 1989 Society – there, a lack of resources was compensated for by an extravagant, almost phantasmagorical form. The film successfully shifted the conflict between the masses and the rich from social reality to a surreal dimension.

There's nothing of the sort in The Cure. Since Society's release, the slogan "eat the rich" has become tired, as have the forms it takes onscreen, however, Leopardi isn't fazed by that.

She dissects social pathologies with surgical unemotionality and even the abrupt climactic shift into a bloody young adult narrative about the price of growing up can't save the situation.

What Did Viewers Think of 'The Cure'?

• On IMDb, The Cure has a score of 4.7/10.

• On Letterboxd, The Cure scored 2.6/5.0.