Panic Room
“Panic Room” is an occasionally intense, stylish thriller that demands you suspend disbelief and logic in order to appreciate what is on the screen. It’s a movie that only works in the moment. The second you leave the theater it all falls apart. When “Panic Room” hustles it is easy to forgive its flaws and lapses, but every time it slows down to catch a breathe, you begin to wonder what all of the fuss is about.
The screenplay by David Koepp is simple and straightforward. Jodie Foster plays a single mom who is looking for a better life for her young daughter Sarah (a spirited and resourceful Kristin Stewart). Looking for a new abode, Meg Altman (Foster) settles on a four-story New York brownstone.
Forget the fact that the previous owner was a billionaire who left behind a large sum of cash that no one has been able to find. Or the fact that the house comes equipped with a “Panic Room,” an industrial strength castle keep that has been designed to keep the owner safe from intruders. The room comes complete with video monitors, supplies, and a dedicated phone line.
The “Panic Room” phone line is not yet connected, a detail Meg plans to take care of in the morning after a good nights sleep. The old saying never put off till tomorrow what you can do today comes back to bite Meg in the butt when intruders break in, forcing Meg and her daughter to seek safety inside the “Panic Room.”
Meg falsely believes that the intruders will take what they want and leave. Instead, she learns that what they have come for is inside the “Panic Room.” Trapped with no way to communicate with the outside, Meg and Sarah find themselves constantly trying to outwit their intruders.
Thanks to breakneck direction by David Fincher, “Panic Room” is a much better movie than the script allows it to be. Fincher uses not one but two directors of photography to generate suspense. Most films confined to a single setting end up feeling like a stage play, but thanks to dizzying camera angles and visual effects, Fincher makes sure that the setting never becomes stagnate.
Koepp’s screenplay raises more questions than it answers, leaving the audience to ponder his logic. The writer definitely has a friend in Fincher, whose cinematic sleight of hand helps divert our attention away from Koepp’s obvious wires and trap doors.
“Panic Room” reminded me of those great ladies in distress films of the 50s and 60s like “Lady in a Cage” with Olivia de Havilland and “Wait Until Dark” with Audrey Hepburn. In those films, the female character finds herself trapped in her own home by thugs. The characters start off as meek, mild women, but eventually rise to the occasion in order to survive.
Meg Altman is cut from the same cloth, and Foster’s transformation is quite believable. She goes from being overwhelmed by the security system in the “Panic Room” to using it as a weapon against her attackers. Thanks to Jodie Foster’s absolute conviction as a determined mother doing what ever it takes to protect her daughter, “Panic Room” feels genuine.
Koepp creates several occurrences where Meg is forced to leave the “Panic Room” (to retrieve a cell phone, medicine for Sarah), and its to the credit of Foster and Fincher that these confrontations work as well as they do. Kristen Stewart creates real presence as Sarah, covering a wide range of emotions with equal conviction.
Forrest Whitaker, Jared Leto and Dwight Yoakam play the three intruders, and as written, all come across as types rather than actual characters. Whitaker is the decent thief who would never hurt anyone, Leto the leader who isn’t as smart as he thinks, and Yoakam the bad guy who hides behind a ski mask and a vicious streak. They’re functional as villains, but individually and collectively they’re no match for Foster’s Meg.
Fincher loves dark house rides (Se7en, The Game, Fight Club), and with the help of photographers Conrad W. Hall and Darius Khondji, he turns Meg’s brownstone into a labyrinth of close calls and hairpin turns. It’s amazing how much tension Fincher can wring out of a scene, especially towards the end of the film when you think the filmmaker has played all of his cards.
Films like this are notorious for their pathos and melodrama, something “Panic Room” thankfully lacks. The film would be a complete waste of time if we didn’t believe in Meg and her ordeal. We do. As it stands, “Panic Room” is a good waste of two hours, but don’t expect to take the experience home with you.
ROOM WITH A BOO Foster squeaks through familiar cat and mouse gamePANIC
Jodie Foster, Forrest Whitaker, Jared Leto, Dwight Yoakam, Kristen Stewart. Directed by David Fincher. Rated R. 118 Minutes.
LARSEN RATING: $5
