Criticism | The Secret Room – Netflix’s psychological suspense will knot your head …

One of the perks of the constant renewal of Netflix’s catalog is having the chance to see how the premieres of films that have often been in theaters or shown to audiences years ago – but which, upon entering the first time on the platform, gain aerial novelty, because that is how they appear to us here in Brazil. This is what happened with the thriller ‘The Secret Room’, a 2018 American production that hit the streaming giant these days and almost immediately jumped into the Top 10 among the watched. week.

Elizabeth (Abbey Lee) had always dreamed of marrying a breathtaking man with whom she was deeply in love. She dreamed that this man would take her to a house that would be theirs alone, isolated from everything and everyone, and that this man would take her away from all that was ugly. This is how Elizabeth marries Henry (Ciaran Hinds), an absolutely filthy, powerful and successful man who is clearly twice his age. Henry takes her to his mansion, where they are greeted by Oliver (Matthew Beard) and Claire (Carla Gugino), the house staff. There, he shows her that everything in the house is hers and that she has free access to all the rooms, except for a certain secret room where he works. But that’s where Elizabeth’s curiosity will lie for the next few days …

Lasting just over an hour and forty, the most curious thing about ‘The Secret Room’ is the construction of its plot. In twenty minutes the story is resolved: Elizabeth discovers the secret of the play, the protagonists have their conflict and the film proposes a resolution. Then the spectator asks himself: well, there it is, the feature film is finished; what’s the next hour and twenty in the movie? This is where the cat’s big leap lies in the film written and directed by Sebastian Gutiérrez: every twenty minutes “The Secret Room” reinvents itself, in a constant and not at all tiring sequence of twists and turns that shake up the plot and change the direction of the film.

Also the play of colors / lighting enhances the minimalist photography and the edition cut in two parallel planes helps to corroborate the feeling of claustrophobia in the development of this psychological suspense which relies on the classic visual representation of an older man married to a beautiful young woman to criticize this androcentric system of representation. Add to that a dash of sci-fi that often bugger the viewer’s brain and wonder what’s going on.

Enjoy watching:

‘The Secret Room’ is a more of the same thriller, starting with a silly little story that doesn’t hook, however, when the viewer is about to give up the film takes a hit and shows what it is. ‘he came from. Surprisingly, it’s a good weekend thriller.

Make sure to watch: