Identity (2003 film)

Identity is a 2003 American mystery thriller film directed by James Mangold, written by Michael Cooney, and starring John Cusack, Ray Liotta, and Amanda Peet with Alfred Molina, Clea DuVall, and Rebecca De Mornay.

Inspired by Agatha Christie's 1939 whodunit And Then There Were None, the film follows ten strangers in an isolated hotel, who are temporarily cut off from the rest of the world and mysteriously killed off one by one. Several events which take place in the hours before the characters' arrival are introduced at key moments in the film using reverse chronology structure and, in a parallel story, a murderer awaits a verdict at a crucial trial that will determine whether he will be executed for his crimes.

Plot
A convict named Malcolm Rivers awaits execution for a vicious mass murder that took place at an apartment building. Journals belonging to Malcolm are discovered misfiled in the case evidence; they were not introduced during the trial. Malcolm's psychiatrist, Dr. Malick, and his defense attorney argue the journals prove Malcolm's insanity.

Meanwhile, ten strangers find themselves stranded in a torrential rainstorm at a remote Nevada motel, run by Larry Washington. The group consists of an ex-cop, now limousine driver, Ed Dakota; Caroline Suzanne, a washed-up, irritable actress; Officer Rhodes, who is transporting convicted murderer Robert Maine; Paris Nevada, a sex worker; newlyweds Lou and Ginny Isiana; and the York family, George, Alice (who was severely injured when Ed accidentally hit her with his limo), and their nine-year-old son, Timmy.

With the group all in separate rooms, Suzanne is killed by an unknown assailant. Ed discovers Suzanne's head in a dryer, along with the number 10 motel key. Maine is suspected to be the killer as he has escaped. Ginny locks herself in the bathroom to escape Lou during a fight, only for the unknown assailant to murder Lou out of Ginny's sight.

At the hearing, Malcolm's diaries indicate that Malcolm suffers from dissociative identity disorder, harboring eleven distinct personalities. His defense attorney argues that he is unaware of his crimes, which is in violation of existing Supreme Court rulings on capital punishment. Dr. Malick is introducing the concept of integrating the personalities of someone with dissociative identity disorder as Malcolm is brought in.

While taking photos of Lou's crime scene, Ed finds the number 9 key in Lou's hands. He begins to suspect that the killer is counting down and targeting them in order. Maine fails to escape the motel area, and he is subdued by Rhodes and Ed. Larry is instructed to guard Maine, but suspicion falls on him when Maine is found dead. Rhodes and Ed find the number 8 key next to his body, and they harass Larry, who takes Paris hostage. Paris wrestles him off, causing Larry to attempt to escape in his truck, but he accidentally crushes George against a dumpster as he tries to save Timmy from being run over.

Rhodes ties Larry to a chair and orders the other guests to stay until dawn. Larry convinces Paris and Ed that he is not the perpetrator by telling them how he ended up at the motel. Alice, still in bed, is checked on and presumably has died from her injuries, but Rhodes finds the number 6 key. George's body is recovered and the number 7 key is found in his pocket, which confuses the others.

Ed tells Ginny and Timmy to flee in a car, but it explodes upon their arrival. The last four survivors discover that the bodies of all the previous victims have disappeared. Paris has a mental breakdown, revealing her birthday is on May 10; it transpires that all eleven people were born on May 10 — which is also Malcolm's birthday and the day he committed the murders.

Ed checks their ID cards in the office, discovering that each one of them is named after a state, and that their birthdays all match. With Dr. Malick calling out to him, Ed finds he is at the hearing, but is confused as to why he is there. Dr. Malick explains that he is one of the personalities that Malcolm Rivers created as a child. Learning one of the personalities committed the murders, Ed is instructed to "go back" to the motel to try to eliminate them.

As Ed returns to the motel, Paris finds convict-transportation files for both Maine and Rhodes in the police car, revealing Rhodes is a criminal acting as an officer. Rhodes attacks Paris, but she is saved by Larry, who is shot to death by Rhodes. Finally believing Rhodes to be the murderous personality, Ed goes after him and the two men end up shooting each other fatally, leaving only Paris still alive.

With the homicidal personality removed, Malcolm's execution is stayed and he is ordered to be placed in a mental institution under Dr. Malick's care. In Malcolm's mind, Paris settles down in her hometown of Frostproof, Florida. As she tends to her orange grove, she discovers the number 1 key buried in the dirt, and she finds Timmy behind her. It is revealed Timmy is actually the murderous personality and that he orchestrated all of the deaths at the motel, including faking his own death. Timmy kills Paris and takes over completely, causing Malcolm to strangle Malick and forcing the van that is en route to the mental institution to swerve off the road and stop before Timmy's voice repeats the poem "Antigonish" by William Hughes Mearns one more time.

Cast

 * John Cusack as Edward "Ed" Dakota, a limousine driver and a former Los Angeles police officer
 * Ray Liotta as Samuel Rhodes, a correctional officer transporting convicted murderer Maine
 * Amanda Peet as Paris Nevada, a sex worker leaving Las Vegas to buy a citrus grove in Florida
 * John Hawkes as Larry Washington, the motel manager
 * Alfred Molina as Dr. Malick, Rivers' psychiatrist
 * Clea DuVall as Virginia "Ginny" Isiana, a superstitious newlywed
 * John C. McGinley as George York, Alice's husband and Timmy's stepfather
 * William Lee Scott as Lou Isiana, Ginny's husband
 * Jake Busey as Robert Maine, a convicted murderer being transported by Rhodes
 * Pruitt Taylor Vince as Malcolm Rivers, a convicted mass murderer
 * Rebecca DeMornay as Caroline Suzanne, an '80s Hollywood TV actress chauffeured by Ed
 * Carmen Argenziano as Defense Lawyer and Attorney
 * Marshall Bell as District Attorney
 * Leila Kenzle as Alice York, George's wife and Timmy's mother who is injured in a car collision
 * Matt Letscher as Assistant District Attorney
 * Bret Loehr as Timothy "Timmy" York, Alice's son and George's stepson
 * Holmes Osborne as Judge Taylor
 * Frederick Coffin as Detective Varole
 * Stuart M. Besser as Frozen Body Larry

Production
Director James Mangold stated in an interview prior to the film's release that he was attracted to a claustrophobic thriller because “I don’t see this as a genre that’s tapped out at this point. You can make it sound dead end but these remain some of the most cinematic films ever made, whether you’re talking about Rear Window, The Others, Polanski’s Knife in the Water, Dead Calm, Carpenter’s The Thing, Alien, huge piles of great films that buck conventional wisdom that a movie should be cinematically broad like a Lawrence of Arabia.”

Actor John Cusack was pursued for the lead because Mangold and producer Cathy Konrad both felt like he was perfect for the role. As Mangold said in another interview, “When you think of movies like The Grifters, you don’t feel like it’s such a stretch. I’d met John a few times and there’s this great ‘Everyman’ sense to him. And while there’s this great warmth to him, especially as he’s grown older, there’s also a simplicity, a gravity to him. There’s something very solid about John.”

Upon being offered the role and sent the script, Cusack stated “I started reading and I thought ‘alright well, we’ll see how this thing goes,’ then on page 30 I thought I had it pegged and I didn’t. And then on page 50 I thought I had figured it out, but I didn’t … and then I kept going this way, and then by the end of it I really hadn’t seen any of those things coming. So I thought ‘man, that’s pretty seamless’ because you know I should have figured this out.” During an appearance on CBS’s The Early Show, Cusack summarized his thoughts by saying “It was one of the most clever scripts I've read in a long time.”

90 percent of the film was shot on Stage 27 at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City. Stage 27 is the same sound stage that once housed the Emerald City during production of The Wizard of Oz. Mangold used production designer Mark Friedberg to transform the sound stage into a complex set with endless rain, featuring a motel with a swimming pool, 14 rooms, and surrounding desert. Filming also took place on location at the Four Aces Movie Ranch in Palmdale, which features the motel from which the motel built on Stage 27 was modeled, Los Angeles City Hall in Los Angeles, and other exterior locations in Palmdale and Lancaster, California.

Angelo Badalamenti was originally signed to score the film, but his music was replaced with a new score by Alan Silvestri.

Critical response
Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four and wrote, "I've seen a lot of movies that are intriguing for the first two acts and then go on autopilot with a formula ending. Identity is a rarity, a movie that seems to be on autopilot for the first two acts and then reveals that it was not, with a third act that causes us to rethink everything that has gone before. Ingenious, how simple and yet how devious the solution is."

Mick LaSalle of SFGate reported, "At first, Identity seems like nothing more than a pleasing and blatant homage (i.e., rip-off) to the Agatha Christie-style thriller where marooned guests realize that a murderer is in their midst... we've seen it before. Yet make no mistake. Identity is more than an entertaining thriller. It's a highly original one."

The Village Voice ' s Dennis Lim wrote of the film's premise, "The premise of the one-rainy-night thriller Identity seems like mothballed Agatha Christie," and of the film's third act twist, "The ultimate cliché of plot-twist implausibility, the crucial revelation is so outlandishly fatuous it might have given Donald Kaufman pause. But there's nothing self-parodic about Identity—the viewer must not only swallow the nullifying third-act bombshell but actually re-engage with the movie on its new, extremely dubious terms."

Brian Mckay of eFilmCritic.com wrote, "This film's cardinal sin was not that it had an engrossing but extremely far-fetched setup to a lackluster resolution—a resolution that probably sounded good during the initial script pitch, but which nobody realized was going to be such a misfire until the production was already at the point of no return. No, what Identity is guilty of most is bad timing—it simply gives away too much, too soon. At about the halfway mark (if not much sooner), the film's big "twist" will finally dawn on you (and if it doesn't, they'll end up coming right out and saying it five minutes later anyway). And once it does, you will no longer care what happens afterward."

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 63% based on 171 reviews, with an average rating of 6.40/10. The site's consensus states: "Identity is a film that will divide audiences—the twists of its plot will either impress or exasperate you." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100 based on 34 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

Director's response and rumored connection to the film Adaptation (2002)
Since its release, the film gained a small following. In retrospect, Mangold said he's very "proud" of the movie:"'I love Identity, I love it. In fact, I think some of the filmmaking, the craftsmanship, the image making, is such that I'm very proud of it. Interestingly, when Adaptation (2002) came out, and there's a joke in the movie about someone with split personality, that came out right before Identity. You know the joke? Nic Cage is working on this crazy idea for a movie, the idea that the killer has multiple personalities, and Adaptation came out about three months before Identity. When I saw Adaptation, I realized I was dead. Half the reviews of Identity were going, like, this is the movie about the stupid joke, someone made a movie of the joke in Adaptation. And it was crushing, honestly, it was crushing because I spent a year and a half working on the movie, and it was kind of like half of the reviews were calling it silly. But part of what I loved about Identity, and maybe you too, was that it was so crazy, that it was just a completely crazy movie. And the freedom of the concept meant that you could exist in a more dreamy, fever-dream space with the film, which was very freeing to me, to be this kind of noir And Then There Were None amped up to eleven on the volume knob. It was very exciting for me, and hugely enjoyable, and I'm very proud of the movie.'"

Box office performance
Identity opened on April 25, 2003 in the United States and Canada in 2,733 theaters. The film ranked at #1 on its opening weekend, accumulating $16,225,263, with a per theater average of $5,936. The film's five-day gross was $18,677,884.

The film dropped down to #3 on its second weekend, behind newly released X2 and The Lizzie McGuire Movie, accumulating $9,423,662 in a 41.9% drop from its first weekend, and per theater average of $3,448. By its third weekend, it dropped down to #4 and made $6,477,585, $2,474 per theater average.

Identity went on to gross $52.1 million in the United States and Canada and $38.1 million overseas. In total, the film has grossed over $90 million worldwide, making it a box office success against its $28 million budget.

Accolades
The film was nominated for Best Action, Adventure or Thriller Film and Best DVD Special Edition Release at 30th Saturn Awards, but lost to Kill Bill Volume 1 and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, respectively.