In the 2009 film The Box, Arlington Steward leaves the Lewis family a button box.
The film, directed by Richard Kelly, adapts Richard Matheson’s short story “Button, Button.” Cameron Diaz and James Marsden play Norma and Arthur Lewis, a financially pressured couple who receive a wooden box with a button. Steward, portrayed by Frank Langella, offers them a choice: pressing the button will bring them money, but someone they do not know will die.
The object functions as a modern Pandora-like device. It presents a tempting reward while concealing catastrophic consequences. Unlike the ancient story, the film centers on a deliberate moral choice rather than an accidental opening of a vessel.
The title can cause confusion because the film is sometimes discussed alongside Pandora’s Box without being a direct adaptation. Its source is Matheson’s story, and the key object is specifically a box with a button. The film’s science-fiction and supernatural elements expand the short story into a broader ethical mystery.