Open Windows

So far, the bullshit of the year and I don’t think anyone can beat it in the three months we have left. The promising Spanish director Nacho Vigalondo has perpetrated a thriller that’s ridiculously unlikely in every possible sense. The “formal” sense, the camera jumping between the windows in the protagonist’s laptop is not as conceptually focused as in this year’s much better The Den, it often feels absurd (modelling the frame from the boot of car), and by the end I wasn’t even sure whether I was still looking at the windows of the titular notebook, or if things had jumped to another device, or somewhere else entirely, or what. And that is only the tip of the iceberg. As a layman, I can’t judge the technical aspect – but even then I think most of the IT stuff was nonsense, though maybe, technically it’s actually possible, if the characters are leading experts or hackers... But then I would expect them to be more savvy in other things as well, but they aren’t. At all. The script is just awful, some of the twists and the clumsy reveals of the characters’ motivations made me almost laugh/cry hysterically. And most of the time it feels even more stupid than it actually is after the final reveal, and so much that I think many people will switch it off after half an hour, because they simply won’t want to watch such a bunch of idiots. And it’s actually that twist that brings the rating up to a merciful two stars, it turns an “absurdly idiotic film” into an “absurdly jumbled film” (where the main plot structure turns out to be relatively rational, though tragically unauthentic and unconvincing), which makes the diagnosis a little less serious. (10/02/2014)

Despite its flaws, I enjoyed the film, and despite its rather long runtime, it managed to hold my attention. That was mostly because I was expecting how convoluted it would be. It's needlessly convoluted, but the form really clicked for me, and I didn't mind it at all. Elijah Wood is becoming an intriguing icon of horror, and I'm curious about what other film he'll appear in next, as it could again be interesting in some way. (02/16/2015)