Once I’m sifting by Netflix for a film to look at, my very own wishy-washiness usually hinders my hunt. I don’t know what I am searching for. I do know it is one thing fascinating sufficient to make me neglect the entertainment-spewing apps on my cellphone. However that does not slender it down a lot, does it?

Oxygen (Oxygène), a 2021 French survival thriller, gripped me from the protagonist’s first strained breath. The flick stars Mélanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds, Now You See Me) as a girl trapped in a claustrophobic pod with a dwindling provide of oxygen. On account of Laurent’s central efficiency, the beautiful rating and a number of twists, I used to be absolutely engrossed in her dire plight.

Oxygen establishes the strain early. Our protagonist, wrapped in unusual materials whereas mendacity on her again, positive aspects consciousness. It is darkish, and a blinking pink mild illuminates her battle to interrupt by her creepy second pores and skin. She emerges gasping for air.

Quickly, the viewers is aware of a couple of extra issues about this blue-eye, blonde-haired lady. She’s locked in a cryogenic pod and can quickly be unable to breathe. She’s additionally missing just about any useful reminiscence about who she is and the way she ended up there.

Speaking her by her horrible circumstance is an AI known as MILO (for “Medical Interface Liaison Operator”), which provides off irritating vibes akin to an automated cellphone menu (nicely, MILO is cussed about how she phrases questions, nevertheless it does help her in some methods). With the assistance/non-help of MILO, she desperately seeks a approach out of her tight spot.  

Extra perceptive viewers could really feel in another way, however I started the movie as flabbergasted as Laurent’s character about what might have landed her in that pod. The solutions come within the type of large twists. 

The thriller retains viewers invested, as does the spacious sci-fi rating and pressing tempo.

Then there’s Laurent. A film completely a few lady caught in a futuristic field must have a reasonably compelling lady in that field. I felt her terror, desperation and anger as she contended with the chance of a horrible loss of life and different unfair facets of her predicament. 

There are a few issues I did not love about this movie. As an illustration, Laurent’s trapped character makes no try in any way to relax and preserve her life help (which is after all simple for this viewer sitting in a cushty front room chair to be aggravated about). 

All through the movie, Laurent’s character sees fragments of reminiscences that do not appear to assist her a lot past one scene near the very finish. And that scene is unceremonious — she wants to seek out one thing within the current, and instantly simply remembers it from the previous.

However these points did not damper my viewing expertise an excessive amount of. In all, Oxygen did the one factor I all the time need a film to do, however can by no means convey by a Netflix search question: It grabbed my full consideration for a full hour and a half. I might strap again in and do it once more.