Review of Green Room (2016) by Canty N — 28 Jun 2016

Director Jeremy Saulnier's GREEN ROOM is pretty much a masterclass of unflinching, sustained tension, driven by top-flight filmmaking and a host of very strong performances. The premise is ingeniously simple, and also a unique variation on the classic idea of a siege movie, and the control - both tonal and visual - displayed by Saulnier is kind of remarkable; nothing in the movie is overplayed, and though it's not exactly understated, it's admirably more restrained than it might have been in more sensationalist hands.

It's a beautifully paced and structured tale, one that builds to mini-crescendos of violence, before easing off (only slightly) and beginning to build again. The writing for the characters is very solid, with the overriding goal seemingly being to make these people - on both sides of the dangerous conflict - feel like identifiably real human beings.

Anton Yelchin is excellent at conveying desperation and growing terror, something which is rendered all the more potent and poignant after his recent tragic passing. As the equivalent of Yelchin's opposite number, Patrick Stewart is chilling, not because he plays the character as a villain, but because he plays him with a degree of normalcy that is highly unsettling.

The movie's one stumble is something that was likely unavoidable (at least to a certain degree), and that's that the decision making of the characters is sometimes frustrating; one gets the sense that the dire situation at the movie's heart could have been resolved less violently if not for some rather impulsive and stupid actions.

But, it is a movie, after all. The resolution of the story walks a fine line between being bleak and being satisfying, and though some may find the movie a grind to sit through because of its intensity, the filmmaking itself actually manages to feel thrilling in its own way (it's just a fantastically well-made and vital movie, top to bottom, on a technical level).

It's one of the finest thrillers of 2016.