The Panic Room

Given that David Fincher’s last two films – Fight Club and The Game – were messy affairs which ultimately glorified the very things they set out to satirise, it’s hardly surprising that the director has chosen to make this rather more generic affair.

Basically a kind of Home Alone for adults, The Panic Room sees Jodie Foster as an embittered first wife who has been traded in for a younger model and must set up home elsewhere with her diabetic daughter (Stewart).

Her new house features what is normally the preserve of the fantastically wealthy – and it must be said, she doesn’t exactly struggle to make ends meet – a panic room. This hi-tech room promises to provide absolute security in the event of a robbery. Naturally enough, Foster soon has reason to make use of the facility, but unfortunately what the burglers are after is actually in the room itself and a psychological battle ensues.

As you might have twigged by now, The Panic Room is not the most original movie ever – but if the base material lacks originality, Fincher’s treatment of it is novel enough to compensate. Hence, despite the film’s more formulaic aspects (it has for example, Leto as the buffoonish, not to mention desperately annoying crook, Whittaker as the good-hearted one and Yoakam as the violent, psychotic one) this is a ruthlessly, brilliantly effective and tense affair, with Fincher’s technical wizardry benefiting the proceedings greatly by adding visual scope to a film which like its protagonist, is trapped in a small space.

Equally impressive is the central turn from Foster. Despite a lengthy absence from the big screen (which frankly we needed more than she did after Nell) she is thoroughly convincing as our resilient and resourceful heroine, and it seems very fortunate in retrospect that Nicole Kidman, who was first choice for the role, had to pull out after a knee injury during the filming of Moulin Rouge.

Ultimately then, The Panic Room qualifies as an impressively engaging nail-biting hour and a half of cinema, making it that rarest of Hollywood beasts – a thriller with actual no fooling thrills. Highly entertaining.