The Panic Room Review
by Karina Montgomery (karina AT cinerina DOT com)July 11th, 2002
Panic Room
Full Price Feature
What a delicious feast of filmmaking. It is visually stimulating, savory in tension and spicy in its use of sound and silence. Visible thought machine Jodie Foster is wonderful to watch when she's put to the test in any film, and in this one she comes alive like she hasn't since possibly Silence of the Lambs. (I may stand corrected, but I can't think of anything else right now.) David Fincher, you have got to love this man. He turned us off when he directed Alien 3, but after Seven and Fight Club and this, you have to respect his vision and skill as a fillmmaker. He is so stylistic and uses the camera like a character, forcing you into the story whether you want to be there or not, and some of his stories you do not want to be there, which is why it is so affecting.
Panic Room was painstakingly designed shot by shot on a specially built set with definite planned movement. They rehearsed on the set with the security cameras in place for the smoothest edits and transitions from film camera to video, and they all got to know this house like the 6th character that it really is. It's smart and beautiful (the house, and the movie). Written by David Koepp, the story wavers between action and psychological drama. Who can we trust and for how long? What can you do to save yourself when you are in the safest place possible?
Foster has obtained an amazing, to-die-for Upper West Side 4200 square foot, 4 floor Victorian brownstone, complete with elevator and of course the titular panic room, which is detailed adequately in the preview. After some groovy credits we get a tour of the house, and the effects begin even before effects could be justified. They aren't even "special effects" in the normal sense so much as the same kind of subtle work used in Contact, such as in the house with the little girl and the non-existent outdoors. But we, inside the camera, crawl all over the house like a bug trying to find the hole to get into the pantry. It's a great mood-setter.
What that french guy said about the house being gloomy and horrible and misinterpreting the ending - well the french invented the word surrender so what do they know?
Fincher, gotta love him seven fight club - stylistic and tense and this is smart and tense and beautifully shot, with extremely brilliant use of sound and editing. The house has security cameras everywhere and they rehearsed with the cameras in place for the smoothest of edits and cuts. Great effects that don't seem like effects. Forest whitaker, jared leto, and dwight yoakam. Kid looks like could be fosters. Jodie as vulnerable as clarice in the dungeon but also whip-ready.
If you can, see it in THX surround digital everything - the sound is as huge a part of the effect as it is in Cast Away. Very effective. The lighting is great too and I can't even describe how. Excellent casting of Kristen Stewart as Foster's daughter - they look and feel like family. It's tough to hold one's own with a force like Foster and Stewart prevailed.
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