A TIGHT DRAMA
Taut new sci-fi thriller makes the most of its literal and artistic constraints
Good journalism asks and answers all your questions. Good movies, too.
In Oxygen, a new science-fiction thriller from French director Alexandre Aja, a woman wakes up in a coffin-like enclosure, confused and needing to know a few things. Where is she? How long has she been there? Who did this to her, and why? Oh, and what's her name?
The unnamed woman — she eventually remembers she's Elizabeth Hansen — is played by Mélanie Laurent, and she does incredible work in a performance space no larger than a phone booth.
Watching her trying to damp down feelings of panic and work the problem, I was reminded that a few years ago a type like this — emotional but also logical — would have “naturally” been played by a man. I like that this is no longer a given.
It's difficult to say much about the story without giving away some of those all-important answers, but I can reveal that the pod, which at first seems like it might be just a box, turns out to be some kind of cryogenic chamber, ringed with medical sensors and topped by a touchscreen.
It's also hooked up to an A.I. assistant named M.I.L.O, voiced in calm, HAL-like tones by Mathieu Amalric. M.I.L.O is smart but not intuitive, so while he eventually provides a wealth of information and even a means of communication, Elizabeth has to figure out the right questions to ask.
About the only data he provides without a prompt is the oxygen level in the pod, which starts out at 35 per cent and slowly falls throughout the movie's taut 100 minutes, giving our protagonist a deadline to escape.
The screenplay, by Christie
LeBlanc, is masterfully constructed to provide just enough information — some of it through recovered memories, flashbacks and/or hallucinations, and some of those more trustworthy than others — to pull us along, curious but never quite frustrated.
There were moments where I was sure Elizabeth was dreaming the whole thing, trapped underground by some criminal element, floating in space or stuck in a hospital ward or some forgotten post-death cryo-storage facility.
Maybe one or more of those is true, maybe not. It's all made clear by the end, and it's one hell of a ride finding out.