Director Report Card: Alexandre Aja (2021)

9. Oxygen

There's this term – I don't know if it's a phrase that has catch on yet – for a type of horror/thriller that is largely set within one, usually very small location. I call these “confined space thrillers.” I know, it's not the catchiest name. A while ago, there was a minor wave of these movies. Thrillers were set in all sort of unlikely locations, like a phone booth, an ATM area, a shuttle bus, a sauna, a swimming pool, a bathroom stall, a car, a ski lift, an elevator and, of course, a coffin. I guess Hitchcock's “Lifeboat” is the granddaddy of this mini-genre. Alexandre Aja's previous film, “Crawl,” already sort of fit in with this premise, being mostly set in a flooded basement. For his next movie, Aja decided to set a story in an even more confined space. “Oxygen,” which largely takes place within a cryogenic chamber, would premiere on Netflix earlier this year.

She awakens, alone and terrified. She is trapped inside a space that is just big enough to hold her, with no memory of her name or even how she got there. Soon, the woman discovers that she is trapped inside a cryogenic chamber. Worst yet, she only has about ninety minutes before she runs out of oxygen and suffocates to death. An on-board A.I., known as MILO, is her only means of contacting the outside world. Memories drift back and the woman soon realizes her name is Elizabeth Hanson, a well-known scientist with a husband and a mother. She rushes to uncover more of her past, figure out how she got into this space, and whether or not she can survive it.

“Oxygen” – which is known as simply “O2” in its native France – certainly has a hell of a premise. The idea of waking up inside a box, with only enough room to wiggle back and forth a little, is a terrifying thought. Since the film's character purposely begins as a blank, it's very easy for the viewer to imagine themselves in this same frightening scenario. This claustrophobic set-up is paired with an aggressively ticking clock. Every time Elizabeth talks, she uses up a little bit more air. She has a set amount of time before she completely runs out, the movie playing out more-or-less in real time. The combination of ideas creates a premise potentially rich with suspense.

Of course, there's a reason people don't attempt to make more movies with such limited settings. It's really hard to keep a story going when one person stuck inside a seven foot long box is the entire movie. “Oxygen” has to think up a number of solutions to the challenges its premise presents. The first of which is that Elizabeth is not really alone in her chamber. She may be the only character on-screen, for most of the movie, but she's far from the only one in the movie. MILO, visualized as a pulsating electric circle and voiced by a fittingly robotic Mathieu Amalric, is her constant companion. The computer also provides a way for Liz to contact the police and other authorities, though this is frequently made difficult by poor signal connections. 

If giving our protagonist a robot to talk to already feels like “Oxygen” is cheating a little with its own premise, it's not the last time it does this. As Elizabeth works hard to jog her own memory, the film often segues into flashbacks. Yes, the movie all about someone being trapped inside a box frequently goes outside that box via the power of the mind. She gets flashes of the laboratory she worked in or the home life with her husband. This naturally fleshes out both the character and the story. Yet it does feel a little bit like “Oxygen” is going out of its way to violate the very gimmick the entire movie is built around. 

Another challenge that confined space thrillers often have to deal with is justifying why someone is stuck in such a tiny area. It's usually because they're pursued by some outside force or trapped due to a disaster scenario. “Oxygen” goes the latter route. If the presence of an advanced A.I. with all sorts of communicative abilities didn't clue you in, this is also a science fiction film. As the film goes on, and we learn more about the exact circumstance Elizabeth is in, increasingly outlandish plot twists are revealed. All the marketing made “Oxygen” seem like a fairly grounded story, so I was caught off-guard by these turns. In fact, I couldn't help but feel like the movie starts to get a little silly the more far-out it becomes. 

Like the similarly preposterous “Crawl,” that silliness sometimes works in “Oxygen's” favor. The movie's growing absurdity can be surprising, or even fun at times. In its best moments, the film is genuinely suspenseful. A sequence where Elizabeth's air is all-but out and she is nearly euthanized has her scrambling to pull her various I.V. tubes out. That scene keeps building effectively, being the closest of close calls. Yet, sometimes, “Oxygen's” attempts at suspense simply fall into the goofy side of things. A scene where she has to roll around to avoid a tiny robotic arm with a needle is too awkward to be suspenseful or amusing. 

Ultimately, I didn't mind “Oxygen” getting goofier as it went on too much. There's some fun to be had with a script that starts out within the realm of the plausible and becomes increasingly more unlikely as it goes on. However, packing at least two huge plot twists into the second half of your movie does have a down-side: It means you're never going to think up an ending that can top that. “Oxygen's” final moments go for sentimentality and quiet catharsis over more shocks. With a little more time, this probably would've made for a fine ending. Yet it couldn't help but feel a bit abrupt, or even anticlimactic, to me on this initial viewing. 

When you have a movie devoted almost entirely to just one person, you better have a really strong actor in your corner. Originally meant to star Noomi Rapace, who still has a producer's credit, Melanie Laurent would end up inside the cryo-pod instead. (Presumably because Rapace had already done enough of that in “Prometheus.”) Laurent is, of course, more than capable. Her performance goes a long way towards humanizing “Oxygen's” often ridiculous writing. Her ability to panic with utmost sincerity immediately sucks the audience in. She creates an utterly human character, someone completely terrified and lost but still fighting on to survive. We are more than willing to follow Laurent on this journey. When “Oxygen” works at its best, it's because of her.

As an Alexandre Aja movie, “Oxygen” carries with it certain expectations. Though it's not true of everything he's directed, his best movies usually feature gory horror delivered in shocking ways. “Oxygen” does indeed feature a bit of that. Elizabeth occasionally hallucinates images of herself on an operating table, gasping for breath while her body is all twisted up. Rats with enormous cancerous tumors have a cameo appearance, before another hallucination fills the chamber with the same rats. Probably the best shock in the movie occurs when Elizabeth finally gets the lights just outside her chamber turned on and is greeted with a very grisly sight. That was a good one.

Yet Aja's memorable visuals aren't strictly limited to the gruesome stuff. The director shows a sharp eye all throughout “Oxygen.” Obviously, shooting an entire movie in such a tight, limited location forced the director to get creative. Sometimes, the camera swirls around the inside of the pod. Other times, Elizabeth is shown floating in complete darkness and isolation, depicted from the side. Easily the most impressive scene in the entire movie occurs when the camera pulls back – all the way back – showing us exactly what kind of situation our protagonist is in. As we spiral through an enormous structure, it begins to resemble the iris of an eye. Which the film then makes more literal, by dissolving to Elizabeth's eye. When combined with rob's ethereal score, “Oxygen” manages to create a real sense of awe. 

The tricks “Oxygen” pulls off are mostly of the narrative and technical type. Yet there is another layer to this movie that I couldn't help but notice. The opening minutes of the film has Elizabeth ripping herself out of a membrane-like bag. When combined with “Oxygen's” premise of a single individual inside an enclosed area, with tubes running in and out of her body, the film's single location can't help but strike me as rather womb-like. Yet Elizabeth also spends the entire movie on the verge of death, which makes the cramped cryo-pod also indicative of a casket. I don't know how intentional this was, and the film's story never quite connects, but themes of birth and death definitely seem to be floating around inside “Oxygen.”

It's also notable that “Oxygen” is Alexandre Aja's first movie in his native language of French since “High Tension.” I can only assume this is because Melanie Laurent is also French. If the movie starred Anne Hathaway, who was attached very early in development, one assumes it would've been in English. Considering this is a very dialogue heavy movie, what language it's in does make a difference. The reviews were pretty mixed on this one, which is not surprising. There are times when “Oxygen” works extremely well. Yet it's also got a goofy streak and an underwhelming ending. How much you're able to enjoy this one will likely depend entirely on how willing you are to swallow its more outlandish moments. [Grade: C+]