# A Cure for Wellness

A Cure for Wellness is a 2016 fantasy psychological horror film about a young executive who is sent to retrieve a colleague from a mysterious rehabilitation center in the Swiss Alps.
    Directed by Gore Verbinski. Produced by Arnon Milchan, Gore Verbinski and David Crockett. Screenplay by Justin Haythe. Story by Justin Haythe and Gore Verbinski.

## Dr. Heinreich Volmer

* Do you know what the cure for the human condition is? Disease. Because that's the only way one could hope for a cure.
* Most of my patients have done extraordinary things. Built vast fortunes, commanded great empires... but at a terrible cost. They have no one who cares from them.
* And do you know what we used to recommend for the common stomach ailment? The application of leeches. Based on the diagnosis, I always pitied the leech.
* [as the orderlies strap Lockhart down] It's all for your own safety Mr. Lockhart. We don't believe in chemical anesthesia at the institute. The impurities inhibit the cure. But, with the proper focus, the mind can overcome any amount of pain.

## Lockhart

* [repeated line] I'm not a patient!
* That's resurrected, we need to clean up the Reynolds account in case those fucks at AML decide to do their job.
* There's something in the water. There's something in the fucking water!

## Dialogue

    [first lines]
    Lockhart: [on the phone] No, we can not touch the munis, we use them as collateral for a leveraged equity position in Cisco. Never mind, take everything out of First National, move it over to Banyon.
    Josh: Wait, you mean Delaware, I thought that was dead.
    Lockhart: That's resurrected, we need to clean up the Reynolds account in case those fucks at AML decide to do their job.
    Josh: Are you sure about that?
    Lockhart: Nothing on email. Move everything back on Monday... You paying attention?
    Josh: Yeah, yeah, I am.
    Conductor: Tickets?
    Pembroke: Is that why this came all this way? Ambition? Then you have it worse than any of us.
    Lockhart: What's that?
    Pembroke: The sickness. Your father saw the truth long before the rest of us. The pointlessness of the entire endeavor. We've all done terrible things. So many terrible things... [submerging into the pool water]
    Volmer: You're quite right... the water is toxic unless it's purified properly, that Baron's only problem was using unwilling subjects... we've come along way in the past two hundred years, now we have plenty of willing volunteers seeking to cure themselves of the ills of the world.
    Pembroke: [brainwashed] I've never felt better in my life.
    Volmer: [to Lockhart] You see... Why would anybody want to leave?
    [Lockhart is reading a letter from Pembroke]
    Pembroke: To my fellow-members of the Board. A man cannot unsee the truth. He cannot willingly return to darkness, or go blind once he has the gift of sight, any more than he can be unborn. We are the only species capable of self-reflection. The only species with the toxin of self-doubt written into our genetic code. Unequal to our gifts, we build, we buy, we consume. We wrap us in the illusion of material success. We cheat and deceive as we claw our way to the pinnacle of what we define as achievement. Superiority to other men. There is a sickness inside us. Rising like the bile that leaves that bitter taste at the back of our throats. It's there in every one of you seated around the table. We deny its existence until one day the body rebels against the mind and screams out, "I am not a well man." No doubt you will think only of the merger. That unclean melding of two equally diseased institutions. But the truth cannot be ignored. For only when we know what ails us can we hope to find the cure. I will not return. Do not attempt to contact me again. Sincerely, Roland E. Pembroke.
    Hank Green: Well, Mr. Lockhart, what do you make of that?
    Lockhart: Clearly he's lost his mind.
    Wilson: Our thought exactly.
    Hollis: Man goes for two-week spa vacation and has a complete mental breakdown.
    Humphrey: [viewing his smartphone] Who the hell takes the waters in the 21st century anyway?
    Lockhart: [waking up in hospital bed] I need to call to New York.
    Volmer: I took the liberty of informing your office of the accident, if that's you concern. They agreed with me that business can wait, and your health cannot.
    Lockhart: Hank Green said that?
    Hannah: You here for the cure?
    Lockhart: No. Actually, I was just leaving.
    Hannah: No one ever leaves.
    Lockhart: Another ballerina?
    Lockhart's Mother: She's not like the others.
    Lockhart: Why's that?
    Lockhart's Mother: [winding the music box] She lives in a dream.
    Lockhart: [as the figure twirls to a melancholy tune] But she's dancing.
    Lockhart's Mother: That's because she doesn't know she's dreaming.
    Hannah: You told me one day I could leave.
    Lockhart: Why would anybody want to leave?
    Lockhart: She's your daughter!
    Volmer: You think she's better off in your world? [peels back the skin off his face] Let me show you what the outside world is capable of!
    [Hannah screams on seeing his badly burnt features]
    Volmer: Everything I've done has been for her!
    Hannah: Dad? Dad!
    [Volmer looks round to see Hannah smash a shovel into his skull]
    Hollis: [as Lockhart begins cycling away with Hannah] Are you insane?
    Lockhart: [last line of the film; with a crazed grin on his face] Actually... I'm feeling much better now!
    [Lockhart continues biking into the night]

## Taglines

* There is a cure.
* All of us are human. None of us are immune.

## Cast

* Dane DeHaan - Lockhart
** Douglas Hamilton - 9-year old Lockhart
* Jason Isaacs - Dr. Heinreich Volmer/Baron von Reichmerl
* Mia Goth - Hannah von Reichmerl
* Harry Groener - Roland Pembroke
* Celia Imrie - Victoria Watkins
* Adrian Schiller - Deputy Director
* Ivo Nandi - Enrico
* Ashok Mandanna - Ron Nair
* Tomas Norström - Frank Hill
* David Bishins - Hank Green
* Carl Lumbly - Wilson
* Lisa Banes - Hollis
* Godehard Giese - Prim Technician
* Magnus Krepper - Pieter The Vet
* Tom Flynn - Humphrey
* Eric Todd - Josh
* Jason Babinsky - Carl
* Johannes Krisch - Caretaker
* Rebecca Street - Lockhart's Mother
* Bert Tischendorf - Lockhart's Father
* Michael Mendl - the Barkeeper

## External links

* A Cure for Wellness quotes at the Internet Movie Database