While making Eye of the Beholder, director Stephan Elliott envisioned

a surrealistic thriller. What the audience ends up getting, however, is an

unrealistic bomb.

The plot, based on the book by Marc Behm, seems interesting enough. A

depressed, British intelligence agent (Ewan McGregor), tortured by visions

of his dead daughter, slowly becomes obsessed with a woman (Ashley Judd)

who has killed the son of a top-ranking British official and has suffered a

loss of her own.

What follows is a jumbled mess of scenes that do not fully establish the

characters, their motives, or why the viewer is even supposed to care about

them. This is a serious flaw since Elliott is obviously betting the success

of Eye on the hope the audience will end up rooting for The Eye

(McGregor) and Joanna Eris (Judd).

The problem with Elliott’s storytelling is that he cannot conjure enough

sympathy for the characters’ afflictions to make their mistakes forgivable.

McGregor’s bereaved agent is still an obsessive – even dangerous – stalker,

and Judd’s lost, little girl is still a cold killer.

McGregor’s affecting sweetness might have worked for him as Obi-Wan Kenobi

in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, but in Eye it seems out of

place. His chemistry with Judd is lukewarm at best, who, incidentally, is

better at not being a killer (Double Jeopardy).

The one bright spot in the film is Jason Priestley’s Gary, a heroine addict

who learns his lesson after he crosses paths with Eris and The Eye.

Granted, Priestley acts like Brandon Walsh on speed, but the small role is

amusing nonetheless.

Sadly, there is not much else that is amusing about Eye of the

Beholder. By the time the film comes to its unfulfilling end, the

audience no longer cares to understand what they have just watched; they

want to venture home and sleep.