Review of Panic Room (2002) by Gareth R — 14 Aug 2012

Most movies follow a formula, but few are more obvious about it than Thrillers. Other genres like Comedies and Horrors can afford to be specialist; different people find different things funny or scary, so there's room for a lot of artistic licence. Thrillers operate very specifically: they either work or they don't.

Panic Room is an especially lean, formula-driven thriller, and it works. It has been criticised for being too lean, too formulaic - it depends entirely on its tense atmosphere and shocks to get a reaction out of you, and there's not a huge amount of incidental information for you to absorb. You couldn't really appreciate it for its subtle flavours or its subtexts, because they're not the point. It's a Thriller, and it thrills.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that, provided it works. Panic Room has a simple premise: a mother and daughter (Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart) move into a new house after the mother's marriage fails. On their very first night at home, three robbers sneak in and set a plan in motion. They weren't expecting anyone to be home, however, and when Meg and Sarah (Foster/Stewart) flee to their impenetrable new panic room, they might actually make matters worse.

The way the plot twists and contorts from this fairly simple starting point is, frankly, impressive. The tension never slackens and it builds to a climax that works so relentlessly on your nerves, you're left feeling exhausted. There isn't a lengthy epilogue, just as there aren't a lot of incidental character moments throughout. The film is only interested in things that will advance the story, and it depends on rich performances (from great character actors like Foster and Forrest Whitaker) to make it worthwhile.

David Fincher also tries to inject flair using his now trademark computer-enhanced cameras. We zoom around the house, through keyholes and other impossibly tight gaps, and although it is rather distracting - as any gimmick will be - it does help keep all the film's characters in the same frame, almost working together in real time. Ultimately, it aids the tension, which everything must do in a film like this.

Panic Room is perhaps unsophisticated. It's got three crooks who don't know very much about one another, which leads to (frankly) predictable consequences. One of them just might have a heart of gold. And the mother has crippling claustrophobia, an issue brought conveniently to the fore by the panic room. But these potential cliches are put to work in a story that works, and thrills and surprises in spite of its minor predictabilities.

Panic Room is a brilliant example of its genre. Thrillers don't have to do much more than thrill us, and that Panic Room succeeds, often in abundance, really ought to be enough.