Took me some time to get around to this movie. It’s one of those “trapped in a place” pictures that makes you wonder how they’re going to fill an hour and forty minutes with this premise. But I think it succeeds… even with lengthy stretches of introspection and downtime.

The flick stars Willem Dafoe as an art thief who breaks into a luxury high-rise apartment. He quickly gets locked in and has to figure out how to survive and escape his impromptu prison.

This is one of those movies where you ask yourself what you would do in this situation and then question what the character actually does. And that’s probably a mistake in this case. I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more symbolism going on than practical reality. More gazing at art and sussing out of its meaning than actual concerns about why he just doesn’t break a window and escape out onto the terrace.

I’m still tumbling over what it all means. Half the movie I was wondering why he was building a tower of furniture and fussing over a light fixture. But that’s the wrong question as the movie seems to suggest at the end. It’s operating in a world of metaphor and symbolism. Even though the film takes its time to show how he finds food and water… and where he poops. I guess it’s the heaven and hell, the ecstasy and the agony, the mental vs. the physical.

I honestly wonder why I was so with the movie even as I was thinking the character should go ham on the windows. I think it’s well shot and fairly well paced despite what some might consider the doldrums. The real reason though is Dafoe simply turning in a quiet, desperate, angry performance.

This flick isn’t for everyone. Some will think it slow and/or pretentious. I was engaged and even a little moved. It’s an interesting, cold, austere flick that shows the descent of one man’s mind and the slow corruption of his prison. I rather liked it.

Score: 84