Tangent Room

Sweden • 2017 • 64m •

• Directed by: Björn Engström. • Starring: Lisa Bearpark, Daniel Epstein, Håkan Julander, Jennifer Lila, Vee Vimolmal. • Music by: Jean-Paul Wall.

Trapped in a mysterious room with no escape, four brilliant minds race against time to prevent a cosmic collapse of the universe. They must learn to work together and solve the puzzle before it's too late.

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Teaser

2:16

Trailer

1:35

Review:

The concept of the film was interesting, so it isn't that the premise was bad, just poorly executed. I understand budget constraints of independent films such as this, but a mantra that is often used in this medium is "show don't tell." Through exposition we find out that the participants had to relinquish all of their personal items at the reception desk. This would have been an easy scene to film.

Perhaps the intention was to make the whole movie what takes place INSIDE the room and thus that is the only location we see our protagonists. However, the problem arises that the introduction has a character in another setting presumably sending out the invitations as well as several random establishing shots of hallways and different telescope observatories sprinkled throughout the movie. Also there are flashbacks experienced by each character so we already see them in environments other than the room.

Another example I felt could have been executed visually telling the story better was when two character compare notes. You literally watch them looking at their books for about five seconds without getting to see what they see. It isn't until they disagree about something that we get to see that one thing. We are show notes later in the film, why not at a time when that is the narrative focus?

There is also a lot of brooding on the part of the characters where we are to think they are deep in thought but, since we can't read there minds and there is no internal monologue or them 'thinking out loud,' we end up watching them silently pondering for several cumulative minutes.

The main issue I have with a lot of sci-fi films is that if you cannot explain the science to the audience in a logical way, then don't make abstract ideas like that your focus. All of the characters are the best in their field of studies and are scientists. Yet all we are given are equations that the audience isn't meant to understand and jumps in logic that don't have a catalyst to cause or justify them. Instead of explaining things away, there could have been things that the characters needed to physically do to avert the disaster, ways that they needed to implement the conclusions that they had come to. Instead, them just figuring out the solution was enough for the universe to be satisfied, no action necessary.

The story also had other strange tangents, lol, it went on. There is a random scene where the characters express different emotions but all of the do the exact same ones in sequence. So we see four people smiling, then frowning, then laughing, etc. The stated idea was to imply that they might lose their minds but it was unnecessary and probably just included to add to the run time.

I don't wish for the director to think that I hate his work, I don't. I just think there are better ways he could have conveyed the story to the audience and added meaningful danger for the characters to address and not just abstract ideas and a time limit. I hope that this filmmaker continues to make films and improve his craft. I did derive entertainment from it, so technically that is a success, but probably not for the reasons that he intended.

Review by jonathanamichaels from the Internet Movie Database.

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