In a seemingly perfect tale for a COVID generation, writer-director Mukunda Michael Dewil’s TheImmaculate Room, crafts the ultimate isolation “what if” scenario. Starring Emile Hirsch and Kate Bosworth, the film had its world premiere at the Mammoth Film Festival on February 3, 2022. Screen Media Films is distributing The Immaculate Room which began showing in theaters and streaming On-Demand on August 19, 2022.
Synopsis
Can you spend fifty days isolated in a white and basically empty room? That is the question that is posed in The Immaculate Room. In this reality-show-themed premise, Michael (Hirsch) and Kate (Bosworth) enter the room with big plans on how they are going to spend their winnings. If they can last fifty days, they will split the $5 million prize. If one of them quits, the prize drops down to $1 million. The couple sees this as an opportunity to restart their failing relationship.
The mysterious room changes lighting so as to simulate morning, afternoon, and nighttime. Additionally, there are three meals per day that are delivered to the couple in the form of a strange liquid in a carton, labeled FOOD. In The Immaculate Room, Kate and Michael are also expected to follow a set of rules throughout the fifty days. Michael quickly becomes suspicious and paranoid, stating that the clock counting down their time left is being altered.
Confident they can last fifty days, stress, anxiety, and boredom soon take their toll. Mike opts to take a “treat,” a green crayon. This eliminates $100,000 from the prize. Mike asks for another treat, this time it’s a naked woman, Simone (Ashley Greene-Khoury). This treat costs them another $250,000. Kate takes a treat, which turns out to be three hits of Ecstasy. Soon, jealousy, paranoia, and fear start affecting all of them. Can Michael and Kate survive to the end?
Kate Bosworth and Emile Hirsch in a scene from “The Immaculate Room.” Photo courtesy of Screen Media.
Analysis
While The Immaculate Room never gets too deep in terms of raw emotions and feelings, the film is still a well-acted and intense drama. The ideas that writer/director Mukunda Michael Dewil is presenting to the viewer are thought-provoking. The film also has a fantastic minimalist aesthetic that reminds one of George Lucas’s THX-1138 (1971). Dewil also elicits solid performances from its two leads, Emile Hirsch and Kate Bosworth. The addition of the green crayon artwork to add this vast color-filled landscape over the bleak white walls is a nice touch.
It’s a noble effort by Dewil to make a film about succumbing to boredom, not boring. In this sense, he partially succeeds as the best parts of The Immaculate Room are watching this distraught couple start to go slowly insane from boredom. However, the one major failing of the screenplay, and thus the film, is that we never really understand why this seemingly already well-off couple puts themselves through this torture. Why not just walk out?
Often in The Immaculate Room, we feel like our main protagonists, alone and bored. Because of this, it’s fortunate for the film’s short running and above-average performances from its leads. Otherwise, Dewil’s latest work would have fallen off the cliff. Additionally, the underlying themes of boredom and greed being our ultimate undoing are told well here. Dewil also hints at an Orwellian-like evil “puppet master” that is overseeing everything. While this is a typical trope for films of this type, it’s well done here and adds suspense to the film’s mundaneness.
Emile Hirsch, Ashley Greene-Khoury, and Kate Bosworth in a scene from “The Immaculate Room.” Photo courtesy of Screen Media.
Performances
While we never fully understand the two lead actors or why they are even together in the first place, that is no fault of Emile Hirsch and Kate Bosworth. They both chew up the dialogue and deliver solid performances of a couple torn apart from each other as the hours roll away. Ashley Greene-Khoury, in what is an underwritten performance as a paid actor thrown into an untenable situation, delivers a magnetic performance nonetheless. The chemistry between her and Bosworth’s character is undeniable, yet unresolved.
In The Immaculate Room, there are some minor “outside” performances that are thrown in as a way to break up the monotony of watching the goings on in a boring white room for 90-minutes. This includes a brief scene involving legendary character actor M. Emmet Walsh. The 89-year-old Coen Brother’s regular portrays Kate’s estranged father in the film and is seen in a video message, which sends her into a tailspin.
Conclusion
The Immaculate Room has a lot going for it. The minimalist set design is top-notch. The cast is solid, and the themes and ideas that Dewil is putting forth are thought-provoking and intriguing. The problem is the underwritten characters fail to push the narrative and take the film to the next level. For a generation of people that are coming out of lockdown and isolation, The Immaculate Room is a film that’s worth the watch and brief discussion you’ll have afterward. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go much deeper than that.
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