The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Getting lost in the surreal is part of why films are created in the first place. When a film grabs your attention, no matter how far the plot goes, that’s when you know that it has scored a point.

The Room follows the couple Kate (Olga Kurylenko), a translator, and artist Matt (Kevin Janssens) as they move into a new house, where they discover a room in that can grant any of their worldly wishes. That seems amazing, right? Well, Kate and Matt soon find out that there is a catch, and that they should be careful what they wish for.

The plot starts as a horror movie cliché with the couple moving into a shady house, yet it quickly pivots its focus onto the room, which, instead of harbouring evil, it just grants wishes. With that different concept, the film could have gone into a million different directions – the one it chooses is not necessarily bad, it’s just not the most thrilling possibility.

Many of the plot’s core events are predictable, which takes out the shock and awe value of many proceedings. That is also partly due to how the film casually handles the events, rather than building up the suspense, or making the best out of the material at hand.

The Room’s main advantage, which makes it worth the watch, is the concept itself; the room and its association with humans’ relationship with want, the consequences of greed, and the failed attempts to replicate someone’s fate.

For the acting, Olga Kurylenko and Kevin Janssens both gave adequate performances, with Kurylenko standing out more with a more emotionally expressive performance. However, both performances were not quite able to do the concept justice, and the feature would have been more profound with more skilled actors.

The Room may not be up to scratch for many people, but its concept, and the ponderings it causes, makes it well worth the watch, despite its flaws.