Spoilers will be in the living room.

Commonly referred as chamber dramas or bottle films, movies that happen in one location often allow for a smaller production to focus on performance to provide tension and drama. The single location also centers the audience’s attention primarily on the characters and induces a feeling a claustrophobia in the audience as well. In short, they can be rather effective in the hands of the right filmmaker.

(Credit: Netflix)

The Immaculate Room (2022) was written and directed by Mukunda Michael Dewil. The young couple of Michael (Emile Hirsch) and Kate (Kate Bosworth) have received what initially feels like a golden opportunity. They get to spend 50 days in the Immaculate Room, a bare white room with no communication to the outside, that rewards your stay with a $5 million prize at the end. The catch is the room does get to mess with your mind using psychological tricks, but the biggest challenge is your own mind as your personal demons are bound to find and torture its occupants.

The room does come with a few rules. If one half of the couple leaves, the prize drops to just a million. If you’re willing to part with some of the money, you can ask for a treat. Other than that, clean but simple clothes are provided, you do get to shower and use the bathroom and nourishment is provided with a tasteless and joyless protein shake. Michael and Kate think they have this in the bag while the audience is quite sure they’re sure to drive each other crazy the next hour.

The premise has been done before a few times. It all depends on the performers. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have a lot of chemistry to begin with, making it impossible to cheer for them as a couple. You also fail to make the conceptual room into a more engaging antagonist. This could have been as simple as placing a camera or a fish eye lens that both characters can end up shouting with. Instead the audience is expecting to root for either Michael or Kate. Michael comes up more as a flake. Kate feels a lot more driven. I will not spoil the things that the room throws at them but they don’t have a particular theme or motif, so it almost feels like we’re literally making it up as we go.

Could have worked. I wanted it to work. Sometimes it feels more like the filmmaker has some idea of how to continue, but mostly it wanders a bit aimlessly. With a little imagination and some camera angles, we could have projected some psychological thrill, but there is not much tension in the way it’s film. Instead, we just leave it up to the performers to fabricate drama. I felt like the camera could have been used a little more creatively here.

Lightly recommended with reservations. It feels like a premise with a lot of potential but very light on its execution. It doesn’t help that very little chemistry is felt between the main cast. Keep it on the bottom half of your watchlist for a rainy day. Worth a watch if nothing else is on.

That will do for now.