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Panic Room
David Fincher follows Fight Club with this Jodie Foster-starring thriller about a woman and her daughter hiding from burglars in their new Manhattan house's safe room
Following the Fight Club phenomenon was always going to be a challenge. Panic Room just isn't in the same league. Fincher has, instead, created a stylish but pretty average thriller from the script by David Koepp (Stir Of Echoes). The film is not without its problems. The biggest problem, worryingly, is the basic premise. The panic room - a domestic safe room where residents can retreat in the event of attack or burglary, likened to "a castle keep" in the film - is an actual phenomenon among wealthy Americans. Despite this basis in fact, the idea still seems absurd - essentially you're imprisoning yourself. It makes for an awkward plot device. In Panic Room, wealthy divorcee Meg Altman (Foster) and her daughter Sarah (Stewart) move into a huge mansion. During the first night in their new home, burglars break in, forcing Meg and Sarah to make immediate use of the panic room. With no working phone, they're faced by quite a predicament, but that isn't the half of it. Jumpy Junior (Leto), dangerous Raoul (Yoakam) and decent but desperate Burnham (Whittaker) want something stashed inside the panic room. Cue a strange duel, wherein half the combatants are locked in an impregnable room. So, how can dramatic tension be generated? Well, the attempts of the burglars to flush Meg and Sarah out (Burnham builds the panic rooms for a living and says early on "You can't get into a panic room. We need her to come out.") provide some action but don't really make for great drama. Nor does the sight of the burglars bickering. Nor do the laboured devices of making Meg claustrophobic and Sarah a diabetic. Indeed, in the hands of a lesser director, it could have been a ludicrous film, and a dull one to boot (films that use one location are rarely thrilling). But Fincher redeems the show not only with his prerequisite gloomy atmospherics (co created by cinematographers Hall, camera operator on Fight Club, and Khonji, who shot Seven) but also by playing more with his trademark inventive camera movements. Remember the opening shot of Fight Club? Well, here the camera prowls round the house, moving not only up and down stairs, but also down pipes and wires, through walls and floors. The technique, though overused, brings a life to the setting, invigorating the inanimate. A further saving grace is provided by Whittaker, who brings a soulful humanity to every part he plays, and Foster, who gives a reliable, focussed performance as the protective mum driven to desperate heroics. Verdict A film about home security and the mother-daughter bond was never going to be as powerful as the quintessential film about the crisis of masculinity, so David Fincher doesn't top Fight Club. Indeed, how could he with a script about locking yourself in a safe? Fincher's a brilliant visual director but to excel he needs better scripts. |
