Oxygen (2021)

Director: Alexandre Aja
Writer(s): Christie LeBlanc
Starring: Melanie Laurent, Mathieu Amalric, Malik Zidi and Laura Boujenah

A woman wakes up in a tiny chamber with no recollection of who she is or how she got there in Alexander Aja’s Oxygen, which is a complete 180 from his previous effort, the embarrassingly overrated alligator-attack-during-storm movie, Crawl. 

This one is centered around what could be considered a gimmick: it takes place almost entirely in one setting, with one visible actor (in this case, Melanie Laurent), who wakes up in a confined cryogenic chamber and discovers she has 90 minutes before she runs out of the titular necessity. As if that weren't enough, she also has no idea who she is or how she ended up there. If that sounds like it will be boring to you, it might very well be: there’s really no action to speak of, and it’s definitely not the type of movie that will appeal to fans of blood-soaked action, or those who like their films to have a frenetic pace. 

Now, having literally one actress, in one setting, with no dialogue, would get dull for even the most patient of cinephiles; thankfully, Elizabeth Hansen - the name of our solo protagonist - has one ally in the form of MILO, an advanced AI computer system. Basically Siri on steroids, Liz can use MILO to call people she knows, ask him questions about her past, view her social media accounts, and even to access information about the strange box she finds herself in.

Unsurprisingly, Liz isn’t just content with waiting for her impending doom, so she kills time by looking for a way out, while simultaneously piecing together the story of how she got there in the first place. Little by little, we learn revelations about her as a person, and what led her (or someone else…) to choose this fate for her. Was she a bad person sentenced to die by asphyxiation? A woman who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time? The twists and turns come at a relaxed pace, and don’t really do much to ratchet up the tension, but they’re close enough together to prevent things from getting too boring.

It all plays out like a futuristic version of Buried, that Ryan Reynolds movie that found him buried alive in a coffin with very little oxygen. Whereas that film used close, in-tight shots to maximize the feeling of claustrophobia, Oxygen is shot in such a way that some of the intensity is lost. The room usually feels too wide and open and most shots, it's not until the main character attempts to move that you really see how tight the chamber is, but considering she isn’t mobile very often, it mostly looks a lot bigger than it should. (As a second opinion, my wife is terribly claustrophobic - to the extent she can't ride elevators - and she had no problems making it through this movie.)

Also eliminating some potential for terror: MILO. While he is a computer incapable of human emotions, he is too advanced for the story. I guess it was a necessity to have in order to move the story along, but a lot of it feels like a copout, considering he knows how to do virtually everything Liz requests. 

All of it leads to a rather unsatisfying, ambiguous ending that really didn’t feel all that natural to me. The actual meaning of that final shot - the only one that doesn’t take place in the small pod - is up for grabs, with even the director stating that he doesn’t know exactly what to make of it. While I don’t mind endings like that, other people who like closure or their stories to have a resolution, will probably be frustrated with this one. Especially those who get caught up in the story.

I guess looking back, Oxygen isn’t a horror movie at all, but rather a sci-fi/drama mix. It isn’t interested in exploiting the claustrophobic setting, which also makes one wonder why they even centered the story around it in the first place. But what it lacks in tension, it makes up for in dramatics, with a story that frequently attempts to tug on the heartstrings, rather than increasing the viewer's heart rate. One could certainly be forgiven - and let down - for assuming the contrary, with director Alexandre Aja having made a name for himself within the horror genre, with efforts like High Tension, and the aforementioned Crawl. 

The film’s biggest strength is Melanie Laurent, as Elizabeth Hansen. She imbues her character with vulnerability, and covers a wide range of expressions and a frequent shifting of mindsets with seemingly relative ease. Thanks to her, the story comes off as believable - and interesting - when it just as easily could have been an absolute failure. 

If you’re into slow-burn movies, Oxygen might give you something to like. It’s a minimalist film that makes decent use of a single, tight setting, and an excellent performance from Melanie Laurent. But if you aren't interested in character stories or talking, then you should probably give this one a pass. 

RATING: 5.5/10.

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