Welcome to the Nuthouse, Where the Inmates Are Delightfully in Charge
If Downton Abbey and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest got drunk, had a wild night in a haunted castle, and woke up to find Edgar Allan Poe directing the aftermath, the result would be Stonehearst Asylum—formerly titled Eliza Graves, because apparently “Victorian madness” wasn’t marketable enough.
Directed by Brad Anderson (of Session 9 fame) and boasting a cast so stacked it looks like an Oscar afterparty—Kate Beckinsale, Ben Kingsley, Michael Caine, David Thewlis, and Jim Sturgess—the film is a gothic delight that mixes horror, romance, and just the right amount of melodramatic absurdity.
It’s a story about insanity, identity, and the thin, stylishly corseted line between the doctors and the damned. And the best part? Everyone in it seems just a little too happy to be playing insane.
The Plot: Paging Dr. Freud, Bring a Straitjacket
We begin in 1899, a year when psychiatry involved more electric shocks and fewer ethics boards. A young Oxford medical student, Edward Newgate (Jim Sturgess, giving the word “earnest” an entirely new definition), arrives at the imposing Stonehearst Asylum hoping to study the treatment of the mentally ill.
He’s greeted by a staff of armed men and an uncomfortably charming superintendent, Dr. Silas Lamb (Ben Kingsley, clearly having the time of his life). Lamb runs the place with unorthodox methods—he lets the patients roam free, dine by candlelight, and generally do everything except actually get better.
It’s all very progressive… until you realize Lamb isn’t a doctor at all.
He’s a patient who, with the help of his sociopathic sidekick Mickey Finn (David Thewlis, grimy and glorious), overthrew the real doctors and locked them in the basement. Because nothing says “reformative therapy” like a coup d’état.
Our naive hero Edward, meanwhile, falls hopelessly in love with Eliza Graves (Kate Beckinsale), a patient suffering from “female hysteria,” which—because it’s the 19th century—basically means she has emotions and a sex drive. Eliza, naturally, is as beautiful as she is traumatized, and their candlelit glances carry enough sexual repression to power all of Victorian England.
Soon Edward uncovers the truth about the asylum: the lunatics really are running the place. But in a delicious twist of irony, it’s not entirely clear who’s madder—the patients upstairs or the doctors in the cellar.
By the end, fires break out, allegiances shift, and everyone learns that sanity is a flexible concept best accessorized with waistcoats and hysteria.
Performances: A Masterclass in Elegant Insanity
Let’s start with Ben Kingsley, who treats his role like a fine cognac—smooth, rich, and a little intoxicating. His Dr. Lamb is part saint, part sadist, and entirely entertaining. He delivers lines about mercy killing and moral relativism with the calm authority of a man explaining how to poach an egg. You almost want to agree with him right up until the electroshock therapy starts.
Kate Beckinsale gives us her best “beautifully haunted” performance since The Aviator, balancing fragility and fury with the grace of a woman perpetually two seconds away from fainting onto a chaise lounge. She spends much of the film looking gorgeously disheveled—like someone who woke up in a Victorian perfume ad and decided to stab the director.
Jim Sturgess is perfectly cast as the puppy-eyed do-gooder with a secret. He’s so charmingly sincere that even when he’s performing therapy on the clinically insane, you half-expect him to start serenading them with a banjo.
And then there’s David Thewlis as Mickey Finn—a man so slimy he could lubricate an entire zeppelin. He’s the human embodiment of a cough in a dark alley. Every time he grins, you can practically smell the gin and moral decay.
Finally, the great Michael Caine appears as the real asylum head, Dr. Salt, locked in the basement with the other “professionals.” He plays it with the weariness of a man who’s seen one too many scripts like this but still delivers his lines like he’s narrating the apocalypse.
The Style: Gothic Glamour and Madness with Mood Lighting
Visually, Stonehearst Asylum is gorgeous—every frame drips with candlelight, fog, and velvet. The asylum itself is less an institution and more a five-star lunatic resort. You half-expect to see a concierge offering complimentary straitjackets and opium.
The cinematography by Tom Yatsko makes madness look positively sumptuous. The color palette of cold blues and flickering golds gives the whole thing a fever-dream quality, while the camera lingers lovingly on every trembling lip and blood-spattered waistcoat.
Director Brad Anderson—who previously terrified audiences with Session 9—approaches the material with a mix of gothic sincerity and sly irony. He understands that a story like this isn’t just about horror; it’s about performance. The asylum is a stage, the doctors are actors, and the patients are everyone who ever pretended to be normal.
The Humor: British Dry, with a Hint of Laudanum
Despite its grim premise, Stonehearst Asylum is laced with wicked humor. The script, based on Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, leans into the absurdity of Victorian psychiatry—back when “treatment” often meant a good dose of opiates and a lecture about morality.
There’s a delicious irony in watching the “mad” Dr. Lamb running the asylum more humanely than the so-called sane doctors he’s imprisoned. When the supposed hero, Edward, accuses Lamb of madness, Kingsley responds with the kind of smooth sarcasm that could cut glass: “Perhaps sanity is simply the most accepted form of lunacy.”
And honestly, after two hours with these people, you start to think he’s got a point.
The Themes: Madness, Mercy, and Moral Gray Areas (with Corsets)
What elevates Stonehearst Asylum above your average gothic potboiler is how earnestly it explores the idea that sanity is relative. Who’s truly insane—the compassionate madman who refuses to torture his patients, or the coldly “rational” doctors who do?
The film takes Poe’s short story and stretches it into something both tragic and romantic. Beneath the melodrama lies a surprisingly tender message: that love and madness often look the same from the outside.
It’s also a sly commentary on class and control. The inmates are aristocrats and artists, while the staff are working-class bruisers with clubs. The revolution at Stonehearst isn’t just a psychiatric uprising—it’s a social one. The lunatics have literally overthrown their betters, and frankly, they seem to be having a much better time.
The Ending: Love in the Time of Delusion
By the time the final twist rolls around—that “Dr. Newgate” isn’t a doctor at all, but another escaped patient—you almost applaud. It’s the perfect Poe flourish: everyone’s mad, no one’s who they seem, and love conquers all, assuming you’re both delusional enough to believe it.
The closing scene, set in a sun-dappled Italian asylum run by nuns, shows the lovers dancing together—Dr. and Mrs. Lamb, blissfully insane and beautifully free. It’s absurd, poetic, and oddly heartwarming. Because if love isn’t a form of madness, what is?
Final Verdict: Utterly Bonkers, Completely Delightful
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½ out of 5
Stonehearst Asylum is a lavish, lunatic romp through the corridors of Victorian insanity—part psychological thriller, part tragic romance, part opulent fever dream. It’s as if someone spilled brandy all over Shutter Island and replaced Leonardo DiCaprio with Kate Beckinsale in a corset.
It’s witty, atmospheric, and just self-aware enough to wink at its own madness. You’ll come for the gothic grandeur, stay for Ben Kingsley’s monologues, and leave wondering whether sanity was ever worth the trouble.
So check yourself in, dear viewer. The doctors are out, the inmates are in, and madness has never looked so gorgeous.
