Editor's Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on March 28, 2002, and we're proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Some of the advance hype has suggested that David Fincher’s Panic Room truly pushes the boundaries as a thriller, that the director of Se7en has come up with another film that plumbs the depths of depravity and unease. Well, he hasn’t, and it doesn’t appear that he tried to; rather, he brings his considerable technical gifts to a straightforward suspense premise that Hitchcock might have appreciated—a sort of inversion of Rear Window.
Like that classic, Panic Room is set in Manhattan (and Hitch might also have liked the scene-setting opening titles, which place the architecturally sculpted credits among New York City’s buildings, backed by Howard Shore music that evokes Bernard Herrmann without slavishly imitating him). Meg Altman (Jodie Foster), a recent divorcee with an apparently very large alimony settlement, moves into an extensive apartment with her sullen young daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart). The place comes complete with a “panic room”—a heavily fortified space behind one wall that serves as an emergency hiding place from intruders. And sure enough, intruders there will be, as a trio of thieves (Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto and Dwight Yoakam) break in on Meg and Sarah’s very first (and stormy, of course) night in the building.
Given that real “panic rooms” are becoming popular in an increasingly skittish Hollywood, this was an inevitable and obvious premise for a thriller, and it’s no surprise that David Koepp’s script (which also bears similarities to the superior low-budgeter If I Die Before I Wake) was snapped up by Columbia for multimillions. Working with the necessarily limited setting, Koepp whips up a series of plot twists and reversals that generally stay within the bounds of credibility, as the thieves attempt to frighten or force Meg and Sarah out of the room (where the booty they seek is hidden) and Meg does her best to repel them. The movie lacks the kind of subtext that made both Rear Window and Se7en great, and while some of the key revelations are made subtly (we learn only incrementally that Sarah is diabetic, and may die if she remains trapped without her medicine), others are too blunt (a forced outburst in which Leto’s character explains his motivations).
Holding it all together is Fincher’s accomplished direction, which combines sinuous, computer-assisted camera moves with occasional blunt and brutal (but not overly gory) bursts of violence, and Foster’s solid and straightforward performance. While her character is an elemental and uncomplicated one, it is Foster’s very groundedness that makes her so effective in the role; it would have been interesting to see how the originally cast and much more glam Nicole Kidman would have handled the part. Her love and concern for her daughter, despite the tension between them, is palpable, and the poised young Stewart’s remarkable resemblance to the star makes their onscreen relationship thoroughly believable. Foster also develops a convincing, very different dynamic with Whitaker, as the most humane of the intruders and the only one given any real shading. Leto’s character is jumpy and Yoakam’s is quietly menacing, and those actors fill the bills without transcending the roles.
Fincher has said that he originally wanted to shoot Panic Room in complete darkness, with only eyes and occasional flashes of light visible. That would have been a striking and challenging stylistic approach, and the director’s fans might lament that the movie looks and plays more conventionally. But it’s an accomplished picture in every department, and if not as down-and-dirty as Fincher’s previous films, it stands head and shoulders above much of what passes for Hollywood thrillers these days.
