A woman wakes up in a cryogenic pod with no idea where she is or why she’s there…

Who doesn’t love a good actor-stuck-in-a-box movie? What…? Just me? I so enjoyed Ryan Reynolds being buried alive in the helpfully entitled Buried (2010) that I saw it twice. Although, to be fair, if the ending of the 1988 Dutch chiller, The Vanishing, didn’t give you nightmares then seek help immediately.

Sorry. A bit of a spoiler there for those who are 33 years behind on their movie going, so I promise not to give anything away about Netflix’s latest exercise in extreme socially isolated film making, Oxygen. This review is going to be challenging because most of the movie’s best moments are in its reveals, but I’ll do my very best.

I think I’m safe to summarise Netflix’s own promo material. A woman of the uniquely stylish intellectual and immaculately manicured French actress variety (my god, she’s got beautiful hands!) – like a refugee from Call My Agent – wakes up in a cryogenic pod, but hasn’t a Scooby who she is, and wouldn’t you just know it, she’s running out of oxygen. But where is she? In a hospital? Buried underground? A secret government installation? Thousands of years into a post-apocalyptic future? To say any more would genuinely render watching the film pretty pointless, but I think I’m allowed to tell you that she finds out that her name is Liz, and that’s about it. Oh yes, and her only help along the way is an AI called MILO – a sort of HAL reboot who’s clearly done an advanced customer services training course, but whose strict adherence to European statutes makes Brexit seem like a particularly good idea.

The premise has me drooling. I love this kind of thing, but as the previous paragraph suggests, the film is a tad stylistically uncertain, veering from the sublime to the plain barking ridiculous. Just when it has you hooked, it lands on a plot point so mind-numbingly daft you find yourself throwing After Eight wrappers at the TV.

What…? Just me again?

I did love the various twists, which are genuinely interesting and in places quite original, but too many of the details don’t hang together. I’d be amazed if you don’t spend far too much of this movie saying to yourself: ‘How long did they say??? How come she can…? Hang on a minute… if she’s…?  And if they’ve…??? And if that’s true then why didn’t…?’

Grrrrr.

Perhaps writer Christie LeBlanc and Director Alexandre Aja just don’t care about that piffling stuff – they’ve got important things to say. My problem is, I stop listening when the details don’t add up.

Verdict: Oxygen is very watchable and Mélanie ‘No-Mates’* Laurent holds the whole thing together more than capably for its 100 minutes, but for this reviewer it was just that bit too daft to fulfil its own promise. A case of the whole being less than the sum of its parts. 6/10

Martin Jameson

*(PS The ‘No-Mates’ thing will make sense when you watch it, I’m sure Ms Laurent has lots of wonderful friends.)