Buried or Tom Hardy in
Locke, and you can add Mélanie Laurent to that list as she s terrific in
Oxygen.
Laurent has little to play with the movie s restricted set and with nobody to play against, bar Mathieu Amalric s disembodied voice as the pod s operator MILO. She manages to sell the sheer terror and panic of the situation, as well as investing you in Liz, which is no easy thing when she starts off as a blank slate. It s a magnetic and wide-ranging performance as Laurent rises to the solo task.
Director
Alexandre Aja might be better known for his gory horrors, but
The Hills Have Eyes remake, but
Oxygen is his first real foray into science fiction. With Laurent s Liz waking in a pod with no memory of her past life as a cryogenic scientist and only 90 minutes to rediscover her identity and make her escape before the O
₂ of the title runs out, there s plenty to mine here in both the sci-fi and horror shades of the spectrum.
Oxygen also marks the French filmmaker s first French-language film since
Haute Tension.
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