Release Date: March 29, 2002
Starring: Jodie Foster, Kristin Stewart, Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, Dwight Yoakam
Directed by: David Fincher
Written by: David Koepp
Distributed by: Sony Pictures Entertainment
MPAA Rating: R (violence, language)
Even the best in Hollywood can't get it right all the time, but it speaks to the success of David Fincher's career that he can have an off day and still be very good. In his Panic Room, a gripping thriller confined to a four-story brownstone in Manhattan's Upper West Side that will most likely be described as Hitchcockian, Fincher has toned down his personal style somewhat. As he tells the movie's slightly predictable story, he sacrifices the raw, unrelenting qualities that made both Se7en and Fight Club the narrative coups that they were. But at the end of the day, both Fincher and screenwriter David Koepp know how to ply suspense, a fact that is never more obvious than during every one of Panic Room's 110 minutes.
It is true that Fincher's film seems like something of an homage to the work of Alfred Hitchcock (the so-called "Master of Suspense"), especially in the way he finesses the story, rather than forces it. (He even includes one shot that Hitchcock used in 1926's The Lodger, in which the camera seems to look through the floor at the people on the next story.) Panic Room is probably most appreciable because, like many of Hitchcock's films, it plays by the rules of real life -- it is free of the contrivances and conveniences that often mar contemporary films of this genre, and for that, David Koepp's screenplay is all the more clever.
Koepp's story is so engaging because you can imagine him setting up the premise and trying to figure his way out of it without giving in to the temptation to include the standard bag of Hollywood tricks (read: unnecessary theatrics). It centers around the "panic room" built into the luxurious new house that the recently divorced Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) and her daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart) have just moved into -- a secret, highly secure room built for use in the event of a break-in.
As luck would have it, trouble -- three intruders named Burnham (Forest Whitaker), Junior (Jared Leto), and Raoul (Dwight Yoakam) -- comes a-knocking on Meg and Sarah's first night in the house. The two make it into the panic room, but that doesn't solve their problems. What the burglars want is inside, and having already been captured by the house's numerous surveillance cameras, they can't afford to leave until they get what they want.
So begins the movie's fervent game of cat-and-mouse, which includes a number of clever and daring moves by both sides. Koepp has written an equal amount of intelligence into both the good guys (er, gals) and the bad guys, and so when the grand finale arrives, it does not happen with the rushed feeling of most studio-produced thrillers. It is a satisfying endgame.
Part of this is due to the actors involved. The five principle players -- Foster, Stewart, Yoakam, Whitaker, and Leto -- do not have substantially written characters, but they manage to play them in a way that sells them to the audience. For instance, the viewer believes that Foster's Meg is a caring mother who will do anything to protect her child; the viewer believes that the three villains might have a falling-out when their efforts do not go as planned; and the viewer believes that everything that happens in Panic Room is true to each of the characters from start to finish.
In a lot of ways, Panic Room is similar to 1994's The River Wild, a suspense thriller in which Meryl Streep played a whitewater rafter who is forced at gunpoint to take two robbers through dangerous rapids as part of their getaway. In both films, which coincidentally feature strong female protagonists (and thus the production team is forced to find clever ways to navigate gender-based heroics), the villains retain the upper hand by preventing the main character from contacting the authorities. It's a basic, time-tested method of developing suspense -- the audience is kept in the dark as to how the protagonists will eventually win, despite their captors' well-laid plans.
Just the same, like most stories in Hollywood, it is becoming more difficult to tell because the audience has seen it done before. Although the viewer doesn't know all the steps to the dance -- and there are plenty of surprises in Koepp's screenplay -- the eventual conclusion is quite clear. Homebound (in a very sadistic sense) though she may be, the audience can be reasonably assured that Meg will eventually win out, somehow.
To the rescue comes David Fincher's much-touted personal style. Already having earned himself the label of "contemporary auteur" with such darkly fascinating works as 1995's Se7en and 1999's Fight Club (in between which he did the little-seen but still very suspenseful The Game, starring Michael Douglas), Fincher approaches Panic Room with a great deal of ambition -- an ambition that plays out on the screen.
His camera is always moving, roaming elaborately constructed sets that are the playground for his newer, hipper brand of urban suspense. His film is meticulous -- the bulk of the story transpires in one night, and although filming was completed over a matter of months, it very well may have been shot in 24 hours. And most of all, although he seems to have put himself on a tight leash for this comparatively tame work, he drops in a few of his trademark cringe-inducing sequences, pushing the bodies of his actors to their physical limits.
No one will disrespect David Fincher for having made Panic Room, although in retrospect, it is quite obvious how different it is from his more seminal efforts like Fight Club and Se7en -- it lacks the compelling observations of human nature. And predictable though David Koepp's screenplay may be, it is still a largely engaging piece of suspense. Although calling it "white-knuckle" may be something of an overstatement, the story will often have the viewer gripping the armrests of his or her seat with something more than normal pressure.
all contents © 2002 Craig Roush