You might be aware that Alexandre Aja’s (Director – ‘Crawl’, ‘The Hills Have Eyes’) psychological sci-fi thriller flick ‘Oxygen’ is currently streaming on Netflix.
You may also know by now that the film follows the story of a woman called ‘Liz’, who wakes up in a highly advanced cryogenic pod, that is controlled by an artificially intelligent machine MILO. The woman can’t seem to remember who she is, where she is, and why she is in a cryogenic pod. She races against time to solve the mystery before oxygen runs out.
With Alexandre Aja at the helm, we assuredly knew that film was in good hands. Just going by the film’s trailer and its official synopsis, ‘Oxygen’ was initially reminiscent of two films namely ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ and ‘Buried’. However, when we saw the whole film, we realized that we were intentionally presented with just the tip of the iceberg.
On the surface, ‘Oxygen’ may give the vibe of a somewhat derivative yet intriguing science fiction survival thriller. However, there is more to it than meets the eye. We say so because from the first few minutes when the film begins, we thought it was a rehashed version of Ryan Reynolds’ ‘Buried’ and to a certain extent, the critically acclaimed ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’.
(Minor Spoilers Ahead) Then, as the film progressed, the multi-layered narrative combined with a riveting screenplay, made us think about two more films. The first one was a Duncan Jones’ film and the other one was directed by Alfonso Cuaron (we can’t tell you the films’ names to preserve the suspense of this film). And that’s the beauty of ‘Oxygen’. It makes the audience guessing all the time, eventually outwitting them with every plot twist. (Spoilers End)
The interesting thing about the film is that since the woman is trying to rebuild her lost memories to figure out the mystery, the audience can empathize with her predicament as even they are just as unaware of the situation, which adds to the film’s nail-biting build-up.
Subsequently, as she starts to get back her distorted memories, the audience also breathes a sigh of relief as we too are rowing the same boat. Moreover, the woman’s dilemma whether the AI character MILO is a friend or a foe, is not revealed until the film’s penultimate scene.
‘Oxygen’ is a visual spectacle albeit not at the cost of resonance. And the best part of the film is its hair-raising and equally heart-warming climactic revelation. You’ll have to watch the film to know what exactly we mean by that.