Not-so-Safe House

Panic Room

Director: David Fincher

Cast: Jodie Foster, Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, Dwight Yoakam, Kristen Stewart

Released: March 29, 2002

Viewed in theaters: April 6, 2002

This is one of those movies that take place all within 24 hours and pretty much within the same location. No, not just the panic room, but the entire brownstone home the panic room is in. The movie starts with single mother, Meg (Jodie Foster) and her eleven-year-old daughter, Sarah (a pre-Bella Swan (and therefore more tolerable!) Kristen Stewart) looking at a gigantic four-story brownstone home in New York's Upper West Side. Needless to say, Meg must have gotten a lot of money from her rich ex-husband in the divorce, because, damn, that house is humongous for just two people! We are introduced to the panic room within the first five minutes when the realtor shows it to them. It is connected to the master bedroom and is made of steel and concrete which surrounds it on all sides. It looks to be a little bigger than a walk-in closet and has a toilet (extremely important!), a security system that includes surveillance cameras and screens that show every room in the house (and since there are about a hundred rooms, there are a hundred screens!), a separate phone line, and a PA system. And to make sure nobody can get in, a heavy steel door that can only be opened from the inside. 

Okay, so I guess the entire movie doesn't take place within 24 hours because I'm sure it took a few days for them to sign the papers and move in, but once they are moved in (and this all happens within the first 15 minutes of the movie, THEN the movie takes place within 24 hours, hell it takes place in one night!) Since they have just moved in, the house is pretty bare, it is mostly filled with boxes that have yet to be unpacked. The whole color palette of the movie is very muted neutral colors like whites, grays, and blacks. The entire look of the house is very drab, but I suppose it helps to set the tone of the movie. 

Meg and her daughter have moved in earlier than expected and this is bad news for them and the three men who are planning to rob their home because they know there is three million dollars in bonds in that house, more specifically, they know it's located in the panic room. They are played by Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, and Dwight Yoakam. Burnham (Whitaker) is a manufacture of the same kind of panic room that was installed in this house and know how they operate; Junior (Leto) is the grandson of the previous owner of the brownstone and therefore knows about the bonds; and Raoul (Yoakam) is the ski-masked man brought in by Junior to help them out without the knowledge of Burnham. They easily break into the house without either female hearing anything since the place is so damn huge! There's some cool shots of the camera going through the keyhole of the front door. Burnham is the first to break in and quickly notices the tenants have moved in earlier then scheduled and wants to back out, but Junior refuses. 

Meg wakes up around this time to use the bathroom. She uses the panic room for light (wouldn't it just be easier to turn on a bedside lamp?) and doesn't notice the three men on one of the screens until she comes back to her room and goes to turn off the light. She runs to grab Sarah and the three men try to stop them as they go into the elevator (yes, there's an old-fashioned elevator in their new home!) Sarah tells her mom they need to go to the panic room and of course they both manage to get in and shut the door right before the burglars reach them. Meg immediately goes for the phone to call the police only to discover this particular phone line hasn't been set up yet. She uses the PA system to tell the men that they need to leave and that she has just called the police. Calling her bluff, Burnham tells Junior that he knows for a fact that the phone lines have not been hooked up...as none of the other phone lines in the house have been hooked up either. Since Meg and Sarah can't hear them, Burnham grabs a notepad and writes that what they have come for is in the room they're in, but Meg has let them know that they are not coming out no matter what and to get out of their house. There's a funny moment when Meg tells her to say "f***" and Meg screams the expletive and Sarah says, "No, Mom, say "Get the f*** out of our house" so Meg has to say the line right this time. 

Junior starts to scream at Burnham, asking him how they can get in there and Burnham tells him that if they could get in there, he would never have a job since the whole reason of a panic room is not letting anybody in! He says they have to figure out a way to get them to come out. Junior and Raoul start to whack away at the bottom of the panic room (and you better believe this house will be trashed by the end of the movie!), but Burnham tells them that even if they get through the concrete, they still have a thick shield of steel to get through. He has a much better idea where he will pump gas from the propane gas tank into the air vents. Raoul goes to turn the gas on even more but Burnham tells him they just need enough to scare them, but Raoul refuses to turn it down. 

Meg and Sarah are able to find a very tiny window they can breathe through for air. Meg is trying to duct tape the vent and she is near the vent for quite awhile that it's a miracle she didn't pass out! When it's clear the tape isn't going to help them, she decides to go another way. She throws Sarah a fire blanket, tells her to "get down" and takes a lighter and ignites a huge fireball that travels through the vents. The guys can hear something is going on and Junior stupidly presses his head against the wall and I'm thinking, Oh, Jared Leto, please get your pretty, pretty face away from there! The fireball (which is so obviously fake, but I'm sure looked realistic in 2002!) hurdles through the vents and burns Junior's face. Ouch. Needles to say, he is pretty enraged. 

Sarah starts using a flashlight to send SOS signals and when her mom asks her where she learned that, she replies, "Titanic" which I thought was funny and made sense. The shades are up in the house across the street and you see the guy get up and saunter over to the window. You can tell he's more annoyed by the flashing light than worried about what it might mean and he pulls his shades down. 

There's a tense scene where Meg makes an attempt to grab her cell phone which she last left on her bedside stand. When she sees their intruders are all downstairs having a heated conversation, she makes a run for it. In the ransack the burglars have done to their home, her bedroom is a mess and her phone is not on her bedside table and she has to take a few minutes to find it. She discovers it under her bed and is reaching for it (reminds me of when I'm trying to get my cat when I need to take him to the vet and he has hidden under the bed (oh, he knows when he's going to the vet!) and I have to reach with all my might to grab him because he's right dab in the middle! And at least phones don't move even further back when you try to reach for them!) While she's reaching for it, she knocks over a lamp and the three men start to hightail it up back to the master bedroom and just miss her by a hair.

Meg calls 911, but when the operator answers, she says, "Please hold." What the hell? Since when does 911 put you on hold? So instead she calls her ex and his new girlfriend answers. Fun trivia: the voice is provided by Nicole Kidman who was suppose to be in this movie, but had to back out. This isn't one of those movies where only one certain person was born for this role, so I would have loved to have seen it with Kidman, great as Foster is. Meg barely has time to tell her ex that there are intruders in her house when the phone goes dead. He gets the message and arrives at the house just minutes after Raoul has shot and killed Junior. They show her ex on the cameras as leverage to make them come out. It is only when Sarah, who has diabetes, goes into a coma shock and Meg needs to grab her insulin. She thinks the coast is clear and that her ex's limp body is the one near the bedroom, but it was actually Raoul wearing her ex's coat and he and Burnham get into the panic room with a nearly comatose Sarah. Raoul gets his hand stuck in the door as it's closing and Meg pleads for Burnham to give Sarah the shock which he does because he's the only one of the three men who has a conscious.

The police arrive because Meg's ex had called them and Meg has to talk them away and tell them everything's okay. The two men find the millions in bonds (and now they only have to share them two ways instead of one, but that won't last for long as we'll soon find out!) They use Sarah as a hostage as their way to get out. Burnham manages to escape, but Meg has whacked Raoul in the head with a sledgehammer and he falls over the railings, but somehow manages to climb back up the stairs and starts to attack Meg. Sarah, who has her insulin needle, leaps onto him to jab the needle in him, but he just flings her into the fireplace like she weighs nothing. We see Burnham is about to climb over the fence, but he hears the struggle and screaming of the two women inside and goes back to help them. It's a good thing to because he is able to kill Raoul seconds before Raoul is about to kill Meg. The police, who must not have wandered very far, come back and arrest Burnham. He may not have gotten the money, but I do hope his sentence was shortened since he DID save their lives....sure they would never have been in this mess if they never decided to rob them in the first place, but it was established early in the movie that he was never a bad guy...mostly just a greedy one. He never wanted to hurt anyone while Junior and especially Raoul didn't care if anyone died. The police never recover the bonds, instead they get blown away by the wind so the neighbors will find a nice surprise in the morning!

And after living in their house for one night, they decide to move! I hope they found something a little more suitable for only two people! 

You Can Forget All Your Troubles; Forget All Your Cares

Girl, Interrupted

Director: James Mangold

Cast: Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Whoopi Goldberg, Brittany Murphy, Elisabeth Moss, Clea DuVall, Vanessa Redgrave, Jared Leto, Jeffery Tambor

Released: December 21, 1999

Viewed in theaters: January 22, 2000

Oscar nominations:

Best Supporting Actress - Angelina Jolie (won)

  

This movie is based on the memoir of the same name written by Susanna Kaysen (portrayed by Winona Ryder) who wrote about her time (a year and a half) at a psychiatrist ward called Claymoore in the late '60s. This is a book I've always meant to read because I like the movie, but I can never find it.  

Right after high school, Susanna is sent to Claymoore. Her parents are worried about her because she is depressed and has no desire to go to college. When her counselor asks her what she's going to do, she tells her that she wants to write. She sleeps with a professor who is married and a guy she met at a party (Jared Leto) so she is deemed "promiscuous". After trying to kill herself by taking an entire bottle of aspirin and chasing it down with a bottle of vokda (she says she had a headache), she is sent to the ward that helps young women with mental problems. 

There's Polly, a schizophrenic who has half of her face badly burned. She is played by Elisabeth Moss who of course went on to be in Mad Men, but I've never seen that show, so to me, she will always be Zoe Bartlett from The West Wing. She is nicknamed "Torch" by AJ's character. It's been about ten years since I last saw this movie and I remembered she had a nickname, but I could have sworn it was "Flame". Close enough! Also, I'm not sure if she calls her this because Polly has red hair or because her face has been badly burned. Hopefully not because of the latter because that would be messed up, but with Lisa you never know! 

Susanna's roommate is Georgina (played by Clea DuVall...okay, I always thought her name was pronounced "Clee-ah", but apparently it's "Clay-ah"?) who is a pathological liar. She tells Susanna this after she has told her how Polly burned her face. Her account is that Polly had a dog she was allergic to and got a big rash on her face and put some ointment on her face, then lit a match. So how did Polly really burn her face? It's never brought up. 

Sociopath Lisa is played by Angelina Jolie for which she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. You may remember that being the ceremony where she wore a vial of Billy Bob Thorton's blood (remember when they were married? How long ago that seems!) and made out with her brother. Sometimes I miss the crazy AJ. Did you know that when you look at Angelina's IMDb page, this movie isn't even featured as one of her "known for" titles? I'm sorry, but what kind of bull**** is that? When I think of Angelina Jolie in terms of film roles, Girl, Interrupted is ALWAYS the first movie I think of! It's probably a combination of several things: it was the first movie I saw AJ in, she has a very memorable role, and for a long time it was the only thing I liked her in. Oh, and she did win the Oscar so you think that would have edged out, say, Salt to make the cut! Anyway! I digress! Let's get back to the review of the movie. Lisa has been at Claymoore for eight years and is the ringleader of the five or so girls who have their own little clique. (This includes Polly and Susanna as well as a anorexic girl named Janet and a mentally disturbed lesbian named Cynthia). She has a captivating, charming personality and draws Susanna into her circle of madness. She is also a bully and manipulative and gets a thrill out of taunting those she does not like. I loved Jolie's performance, but I really hated Lisa. She is an awful person. But I could see how the other girls were drawn to her.

The most interesting, disturbing, and tragic character is Daisy. She is played by Brittany Murphy and I'm gong to say it: I think this was her best role. Now I didn't say most iconic or popular, because that would be Clueless, but I do think this is her best acting. If anyone needs a psych ward, it's her. (I mean, they all need one...but she really needs one). And yet, for some reason, she is released early. She has this weird eating disorder where the only thing she will eat is rotisserie chickens from her father's deli and she keeps the eaten carcasses under her bed. She has a private room because she prefers to keep to herself, oh, and did I mention the most disturbing thing of all: her father has sex with her. :::shudder::: So why she is released, I wasn't really sure. But we'll get back to her later.

Lisa invites Susanna into her little circle. She encourages her to fake take her medication, talk back to the staff (which includes Whoopi Goldberg as Nurse Valerie and Vanessa Redgrave and Jeffrey Tambor as psychiatrists), and sneak out with her and the other girls where they go under the building where there is an old bowling lane. This place has the worst security I have ever seen. They do checks every night, but they always do it at the same time, so of course the girls have beat the system because they just stay in the rooms until the nurses have made sure they're in there, THEN they sneak out. Well, duh, if they had their checks sporadically every night, then they wouldn't know when to sneak out. 

After Susanna and Lisa get in trouble for stealing a guitar from the music room and singing "Downtown" to an upset Polly (this must have been my fourth or fifth time seeing the movie and this was the first time I caught that "Downtown" is played in the car radio on Susanna's drive to Claymoore! I had oddly never noticed that before). I had actually never heard of that song until I saw this movie and I just love it. Music is the one thing that makes her happy and it works, except when the male orderly comes over to shut them up so they don't wake anybody up, Susanna and the orderly  end up kissing (she's taking her "promiscuous" diagnosis to heart!) and are found sleeping with their arms around each other and Nurse Valerie catches them in the morning and writes her up.

This prompts Susanna and Lisa to decide to run away to Disney World which is opening soon where Lisa will be their new Cinderella and Susanna will be Snow White (well, she does have the right haircut for it!) They are able to walk right out the doors after their checks (because they know they are at the same time every night!) I'm sure the doors are locked from the outside, but what kind of place that is home to many mentally unstable people don't lock their docks from the inside? There aren't even any night nurses monitoring the halls! As you can imagine, this makes it quite easy for the girls to escape. Lisa has acquired the address to Daisy's new apartment her father bought for her where she now resides with her gray cat, Ruby. 

There has never been any love lost between Lisa and Daisy and Daisy only lets them in because she thinks it's only Susanna who tells her she has Valium. It is clear Daisy hasn't gotten better because the only thing she has in her fridge is mayonnaise and rotisserie chickens and she is cutting herself. Lisa cruelly taunts her about her dad molesting her and the fact that Daisy likes it. Susanna pleads Lisa to stop, but being cruel to Daisy makes Lisa feel superior. 

In the morning, when Susanna comes back with breakfast, Lisa tells her that Daisy hasn't come down yet and the same song has been playing over and over on a loop. The song is "The End of the World" by Skeeter Davis and because of the lyrics; the fact that Daisy hasn't come down yet; and Daisy's all-around well-being; Susanna, as well as the audience, I'm sure, is a little bit concerned. Not finding Daisy in her room, Susanna fears the worst when she creeps down the hall to the bathroom with the door closed. She opens it to find that Daisy has hung herself. After Susanna starts shrieking and crying, Lisa comes up and calls Daisy an idiot and checks to see if she has any money on her. Susanna says she's going to call an ambulance and Lisa says she should call a hearse. Very little concern that her comments from the night before prompted Daisy to kill herself! I am surprised that she didn't comment that Daisy had a tub after all because the night before she asked if there was a bathtub upstairs and Daisy said no. 

Susanna is so distraught by this that she doesn't want to go anywhere with Lisa anymore and goes back to  Claymoore. Lisa is also brought back a few days later, although against her will. Susanna has a heart to heart with Nurse Valerie who she was quite awful to before she ran away and starts to make progress with her treatments and is eventually released.

The soundtrack to this movie is great; lots of '60 favorites. I especially love the song, "The Weight."

Here's a Cinematic Sara first for you: you know how at the Oscars the big 8 includes Best Picture, Best Director, the four acting categories, and the two writing categories? Well, I reviewed all the movies that won those awards at the 2000 Oscars for the movies that came out in 1999. They include American Beauty (for Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Original Screenplay - that one knocked out half of them!); The Cider House Rules (for Best Supporting Actor and Adapted Screenplay); Boys Don't Cry (for Best Actress);  and now I can add Girl, Interrupted (for Best Supporting Actress) to that list!