Netflix’s Oxygen has a simple premise. A woman wakes up in a cryogenic chamber with no recollection of how she got there. Soon she realizes that the oxygen level is dropping and must find a way out before running out of air. But it’s not a simple movie.
Single location movies are hard to make. An interesting premise doesn’t mean that the movie will deliver. But once in a while, that curse is broken and a gem of a movie comes out. Count me in as a big fan of Buried with Ryan Reynolds or Locke with Tom Hardy.
The tough aspect of such a concept is to maintain the interest of the viewer while not going overboard with the story. Buried took the concept of a man buried alive in a coffin and made a nail-biting thriller. Locke presented a simple story of a man driving in a car to an unknown destination and made a character study of a man trying to control his soon-to-be changed life.
Oxygen has the same task as those two films. Maintain our interest while watching a woman trapped in a cryogenic chamber. And it succeeds. It’s a very tense movie, with some interesting twists and a great performance by the lead actress, Mélanie Laurent.
Laurent is mostly known to the general audience as Shoshanna in Inglorious Basterds. If her performance in that movie was all about restraint in the face of danger, here she bares all her emotions for us to experience. She delivers an assured and emotional performance, going through all the stages of grief with aplomb. She receives help from the script as well, by having a protagonist who is also intelligent and resourceful.
That being said, the twists may make or break the film. You have to go along with its bonkers reveals to enjoy this movie. Sure, the ending is a bit of cop out but count this writer as someone who admired its audacity.
Another piece of interesting trivia is that originally, the movie was going to be a starring vehicle for Anne Hathaway. Director Alexandre Aja then came onboard (who achieved great success with English language movies Crawl and Horns) and decided to return his French roots. Netlix has also expanded their international catalogue and backed-up this movie, which must be applauded. It would have been so easy to make an English language movie out of this material, so the fact that the film is in French, seems like a breath of fresh air.
Oxygen is a little thriller that is fun, gutsy, claustrophobic, intense and a great ride if you have 100 minutes to spare. Come for the premise, leave with Laurent’s excellent performance. 8.2/10
