Adventures in Jodie Fostering: Panic Room

I have been thinking a lot about Panic Room and Zodiac, so this has more to do with David Fincher, and less to do with Jodie Foster. Although I might admit that the "I am single" speech at the Golden Globes gave the viewing that extra push. 

I had first seen Panic Room in a theater it in its first run in 2002, and I'm glad to say that it does hold up to scrutiny and remains terribly scary even when watching on a smaller screen. Perhaps the more contained dimension helps in cramping up the space even more than the 6x14 feet of the titular safe room. 

All we need to know happens in the first few minutes: a recently divorced mother checks out new dwellings with her young daughter. On their first night, three burglars break in looking for the millions allegedly stashed in the safe room. The contained location becomes the crucible for all the action. Everything happens in one night, in that house, and mostly inside and the immediate environs of the panic room. 

What's interesting to watch in Panic Room is how David Fincher and the script by David Koepp were able to negotiate the balances of power between the intruders and the homeowners, managing it mostly by who is inside or outside that three feet thick steel door, and then having it escalate to matters of life and death. 

I also love it that the entire movie is summed up in a couple of exchanges. The first one was when Meg realized there were other people in the house and makes a run for her daughter's room. "What's happening?" The barely awake Sarah asks while they race to the panic room. "Pinball, in a house," Meg says. Which is true. A core of five (or six, or eight) people bouncing around the house, trying to force each other to open or slam doors. 

Then there's conversation waged over the security camera monitors. Jared Leto's Junior holds up a series of handwritten signs to tell Meg what their intentions are: "What we want is in that room." Junior figures out that women crave security, so he adds: "We will let you go." Even young Sarah knows this was a total lie, so she tells her mother to tell the invaders off. "We're not coming out. We're not letting you in." It's still not tough enough for Sarah so she tells Meg, "Say 'fuck'." Meg swears, but in the right way, so she has to repeat it for emphasis. "Get the fuck out of my house." That is the entire movie in a nutshell: Shit is going to go down if they don't do as she says. 

Also interesting for me this time around is the relationship between Jodie Foster's divorcee mother and daughter, a really young Kristen Stewart, several lifetimes before she became Bella Swan or became known as KStew. Hell, the first time around, I didn't even know Kristen Stewart was the kid in the picture. Her Sarah is pretty much a tomboy, with her androgynous haircut and even advising her mother to swear to let the burglars know she means business. Yet, Sarah is pretty much the vulnerable child, spurring her mother to abandon the safety of the panic room so she could get her child's medication.  

Then I read elsewhere that Nicole Kidman was originally cast to play the mother, and Stewart was cast to play off her: the daughter as antithesis to the helpless, glamourous mother. But Kidman had a knee injury from Moulin Rouge and had to leave. When Foster came on board, the role of Meg was rewritten to make her tougher, and more similar to her daughter. What even complicated the shoot more was that Foster found out she was pregnant five weeks into the shooting. But I have to say there is sheer joy in watching mother and daughter interact. 

Although some people might say that the story is pretty thin, I think it just can't get any tighter than that. I would even venture to say that Panic Room is way better than similar movies during its time (Phonebooth with Colin Farrell comes to mind) or even later--I'm thinking of Liam Neeson's Taken movies, but that "Harm my family and I swear to hell you'll pay for it" revenge theme comparison might be better suited to later Jodie Foster movies like Flightplan and The Brave One, which I totally intend to watch because it promises to be sheer good fun. I have a feeling that Jodie Foster makes for a better action star than Tom Cruise or even Angelina Jolie. We'll see. 

The Fairest in the Land

Tell me I'm the fairest in the land, or I shall impale you with my crown.

I saw Snow White and the Huntsman on opening day. I was there partly to see Kristen Stewart grimace her way through the movie and partly to watch Charlize Theron's milk bath dry.  Also, I have a standing bet that KStew will have more chemistry with Theron's Queen Ravenna  than with the Chris Hemsworth's Huntsman. Or any other guy they throw her way for that matter. There's even a meme dedicated to that, but that's another matter.

I was also curious how the movie would pull off this premise: If Charlize Theron is your Queen, how can the mirror declare KStew the fairest in the land? Anyone with eyes and a cursory glancing knowledge of the tale knows the story didn't say "most awkward and would be first in line at the Converse sale." Sure, sure, Snow White is but a bud versus the Queen's beauty in full bloom, and the princess can still blossom into a fair maiden later in her youth. But, KStew is the fairest in the land, really? The One who represents "life itself" is deader than anything or even The Nothing. If I were the Queen, I'd throw a tantrum, too. But while wearing fabulous clothes made of raven feathers and hate, of course. 

The most interesting dynamic in the movie is still that of the Evil Queen and her stepdaughter. We see how she took over Snow White's father's kingdom: She sends out a phantom army, plays a damsel in distress, which of course pumps up the need to protect said damsel and marry her immediately, like the very next day. 

There are a lot of questions surrounding Ravenna's rise to power: how come this king has not heard of this modus before? Is beauty really so powerful that it enamors and enslaves men and drives them to their own ruin? We'll accept that this beauty is potent, courtesy of the spell cast by Ravenna's mother. It is unclear how often this spell be fed with the beauty of young women. There was this lone young woman in the tower with Snow White in the beginning--the one that Snow White wanted to liberate later on only to discover that the young woman had been drained of her youth. But later on, there's this hall full of dead women. Does Queen Ravenna have a cheat day where she can gorge on a buffet of pretty damsels? 

Also, the Mirror doesn't seem to do much other than to point out that the spell can be undone by the fairest in the land, and so Snow White must be vanquished. Once Ravenna became weak, there is no solace or advice from the Mirror. But it does drive Queen Ravenna to use all her powers. She apparently has the ability to transform herself--and guess what, she chooses to be the Duke's son William, Snow White's childhood protector. 

Trolled!

So technically, Snow White's first kiss is with her stepmother. And it kills her. What can be more awkward than that? To be fair, Snow White does get two more kisses: once from William--the kiss we have been told should revive her. But it did not do anything. It is the Huntsman's kiss that brings her back to life. Strangely enough, this turn of events wasn't explored much in the movie. 

I was under the impression that this would be about empowering fairy tale princesses, i.e., Snow White the Warrior Princess. The trailers were all about Snow White in chainmail on a galloping horse, on her way to battle the Evil Queen Stepmother, aptly named Ravenna. (How very Mulawin of them, no?) Unless the princess had received warrior training prior to her imprisonment in the north tower after her father's death, then Snow White has to get her warrior training somewhere before going off into a great battle, yes? So perhaps that's where the Huntsman goes in. I thought the deviation from the fairy tale would come once Princess and Huntsman get together. The movie is named Snow White and the Huntsman after all. 

But the closest we get to hunting lessons from the Huntsman is that one moment where he tells Snow White that she should drive the knife in all the way to the hilt. Where is the Karate Kid training montage? Where is Snow White's initial rejection of her role as savior? Other than that, it's a movie that's partly the Fellowship of the Dwarves in Pandora with a side of Narnia. And that's it, off to battle we go. 

Seriously, who rides off to battle after a semi-awkward speech from a recently back from the dead princess? 

There is this bit in the end that "fairest in the land" does not pertain to beauty but a sense of equal judgment. So it really is about Snow White reasserting her rightful role as ruler of her father's kingdom. She has no need for the Huntsman or the Duke's son. But I am more concerned about the Queen's fate: What does it mean when a woman is driven to protect her daughter by casting a spell that allows her to rise to power so that she would not suffer at the hands of men again, but the spell forces said daughter to make other women suffer at her expense, to feed off their youth and beauty? And yet her ultimate undoing comes from the one girl who refused to give her her heart. All it takes is three drops of blood. 

(Here's an alternative take on this: Who are we kidding? I went into the theater to gawk at the screen. The movie is gorgeous to look at, Charlize Theron is really pretty and wears fabulous clothes made of raven feathers and hate. Here's the interview with Snow White and the Huntsman costume designer Coleen Atwood on how hundreds of roosters sacrificed their lives at the altar of Queen Ravenna.)