Camera heightens icy tension of 'Panic'
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Something about the opening of David Fincher's "Panic Room" immediately brings to mind Alfred Hitchcock's classic tale of voyeurism, "Rear Window" — the leisurely shots of New York apartment buildings with their banks of faceless windows; the vaguely '50s-style lettering of the credits; the ominous sense that behind each of these windows lies a story, if only we could see inside. And "Panic Room" does indeed turn out to be about voyeurism, but of a flashier and far less human sort. It's a triumph of technical filmmaking; as a story, it's got ice in its heart.
Nonetheless, it's a treat to see long-absent Jodie Foster back on screen, and she does her flinty best with the somewhat thankless role of Meg Altman, a single mom smarting from a recent divorce. At the movie's start, Meg and her daughter have just moved into a posh Manhattan townhouse containing a "panic room" — a high-tech shelter to be used in the event of danger — and, from the murky looks of things, very few working light fixtures. We've barely met Meg and young Sarah (Kristen Stewart) when, on their very first night in the house, some nasty intruders show up and the cat-and-mouse game begins.
(Why don't Meg and Sarah just call for help from the panic room, you say? Well, if they could do that, there wouldn't be a movie.)
But "Panic Room's" two inventive directors of photography, Conrad W. Hall (son of the legendary cinematographer Conrad L. Hall, who won his most recent Oscar for "American Beauty") and Darius Khondji (who shot Fincher's equally dark "Seven"), are the film's real stars. Their cameras seamlessly whoosh through keyholes, under counters and through floors, giving us a moody roller-coaster tour of the dark house. Later, as the movie explodes into violence, the camera becomes a brutal kick in the face.
It's all very stylish and cool, in a disembodied sort of way — we're not seeing any of this through the eyes of a person, but through a camera that, in some ways, is more of a character than anyone on screen. The people all are one-note: Meg is brave and strong; little Sarah is a mini-Meg; the three intruders (Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, Dwight Yoakam) are smart, dumb and evil, respectively. Whitaker's character turns out to have a conscience, which gives the actor something to play, but otherwise the story is secondary to the visual thrill ride. You find yourself curious about where the camera will go next, not what will happen to the people it's capturing.
"Panic Room" is an accomplished and often elegant film, and David Koepp's screenplay has some nicely pared-down dialogue. (Sarah, asked if her mom is rich, replies, "No, my dad's rich. Mom's just mad.") But, when it's over, you wonder what the point was — why, exactly, Fincher wanted to tell this story. Foster, in an enigmatic final close-up, looks like she's wondering, too.
Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com.
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