Tangent Room is a sci-fi thriller about four brilliant minds trapped in a mysterious room with no escape, who race against time to prevent a cosmic collapse of the universe.
When you think of movies where people are held in a room against their will – basically captives – the motivations behind such horrors often center on a few specific issues. You’ve got your revenge, your twisted deviant observations, your money, and of course, misguided ‘love’. Now we have writer/director Björn Engström‘s curious entry in the stew called Tangent Room, where the reasons behind why four people are locked in a room are not at all the usual.
Way separated from the rest of the planet, at an extremely remote research facility in the far reaches of Chile, four – Sandra (Lisa Bearpark), David (Håkan Julander), Carol (Jennifer Lila), Kate (Vee Vimolmal) – of the world’s top science thinkers come together on invite, meeting in a small simple room with only a table and four chairs, a few standard notepads, and a chalkboard. Once inside, the door locks, and on a monitor on one wall, their host, the famed Doctor Wahlstein (Daniel Epstein) appears in a pre-recorded video, explaining that tonight they will all die. However, they can prevent this by unscrambling the mystery behind a series of numbers he provides them. Now the race is on to understand what it means and save not only themselves, but the entire universe.
This isn’t a Saw-esque chiller with dastardly devices dispensing buckets of blood. It does have threats of death with impending doom always at the forefront, but the traps here are of the mind with each having to work past the fear and natural urge to fight out of the room. They must instead use math to learn how to move forward, discovering that well, everything they do in this room connects to existence itself.
It’s a complex little puzzle that pits great minds against each other as theories and calculations clash, Engström sneaking his camera out of the room for brief flashbacks of all four trapped inside, their memories triggering something to inch them free. Things gets pretty trippy though and as events break down and a larger truth unravels, the four struggle to comprehend what it means.
You will too, of course, though Engström doesn’t get too wound up in the terminology, mostly keeping this accessible even as they talk and write in formulas and vocabulary most would not have any knowledge of. Either way, it’s clever and smart, but also fun as it all reaches for its cosmic end. I’m a sucker for this kind of mindbender and was drawn right into the premise from frame one. Results may vary for others.
At a mere 64 minutes, Tangent Room is all about economy, briskly introducing and spooling out its tricks with time on your side, making this little gem a sure pick for fans of science-based thrillers. It builds to a kinetic head-spinner that uses its one-room setting (and visuals) to good effect, stitching together a unique theoricial future that poses plenty of interesting questions. While it might not have the profound impact its premise seems ready to deliver, it’s nonetheless a challenging and innovative experiment.