Heavily inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s influence on Brian De Palma,
\nNacho Vigalondo\u2019s \u201cOpen Windows\u201d goes from crazy to Crazy to CRAZY, but
\nmaintains enough energy and cultural currency to keep the entertainment value
\nhigh. It\u2019s one of those admittedly silly films that moves so quickly that one rarely has time to
\nquestion its logic. Consider that a piece of advice. If you think about any of
\nthe dozen or so twists in \u201cOpen Windows\u201d for even a few seconds, the entire
\nexercise falls apart. However, there\u2019s enough filmmaking skill and an enticing
\nmelting pot of commentary on celebrity and hacker culture to keep it humming.
\nIt\u2019s nonsense, but it\u2019s glorious nonsense.<\/p>\n
Nick Chambers (Elijah Wood) runs a website devoted to his
\nfavorite starlet, Jill Goddard (Sasha Grey), star of a series of sci-fi action
\nflicks called \u201cDark Sky.\u201d Jill is appearing at a convention in Austin, where
\nNick has been told he has won a blogger contest to have dinner with his beloved
\nactress. Sitting in his hotel room, watching Jill\u2019s latest public appearance
\nonline, Nick gets a call from a mysterious man named Chord (Neil Maskell). The
\nman on the other end of the line begins to manipulate Nick, telling him that
\nJill has canceled their date before giving the fan access to her cell phone.
\nThey can see and hear Jill\u2019s every action, including breaking up with her actor
\nboyfriend and going to meet her new beau in the same hotel at which Nick is
\nstaying. At first, it\u2019s \u201cRear Window\u201d with modern technology\u2014the pane of glass
\nreplaced by a smartphone, the new way to play peeping tom. The first act feels
\nlike a clever commentary on how much celebrities \u201cowe us,\u201d especially in the
\nera of the hacked celebrity photos scandal.<\/p>\n
Then Nick leaves his room. At the end of the stellar first
\nact, Nick starts running around the halls with his laptop, playing puppet on a
\nstring to Chord\u2019s demands and \u201cOpen Windows\u201d goes from thriller to insanity.
\nDid I mention yet that the whole thing takes place on that laptop screen? Yes,
\nit\u2019s a series of \u201copen windows,\u201d displaying Nick\u2019s webcam, Jill\u2019s phone cam, a
\ndashboard cam, etc. It\u2019s a clever concept that threatens to completely
\ncollapse, especially when Vigalondo tries to stage a car chase with this
\nstructure, but it never quite does. Again, it\u2019s the kind of thing that if one
\nquestions with any sort of intensity, their eyes will roll. And yet, thanks in
\nlarge part to incredibly tight editing by Bernat Vilaplana, I kept my disbelief
\nsuspended. It\u2019s a gimmick that so openly announces and presents itself that it\u2019s
\nhard to criticize. As De Palma often did in his crazier moments, it\u2019s a
\nfilmmaker who knows he\u2019s pushing the boundaries of logic but does so with just
\nthe right amount of confidence. And \u201cOpen Windows\u201d gets crazier and crazier,
\nwhich I\u2019ve always considered a positive thing. I have a much bigger problem
\nwith films that pretend to be extreme than those that go off the rails. \u201cOpen
\nWindows\u201d flies off the rails of logic in style.<\/p>\n
Mostly. There could have been a few more believable
\nreactions by the people involved in this insanity. Nick so openly does whatever
\nChord says in the first act that it\u2019s hard to believe he\u2019s ever even seen a
\nmovie much less runs a website devoted to them. (Didn\u2019t he see \u201cGrand Piano,\u201d
\nanother Wood vehicle from this year that featured a distant tormentor and could
\nbe called De Palma-esque?) It\u2019s a product of the plot that Nick openly accepts
\nas much as he does. As is the fact that Jill quickly follows almost every order. They\u2019re
\ncogs in Vigalondo\u2019s machine as much as Chord\u2019s elaborate plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Heavily inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s influence on Brian De Palma, Nacho Vigalondo\u2019s \u201cOpen Windows\u201d goes from crazy to Crazy to CRAZY, but maintains enough energy and cultural currency to keep the entertainment value high. It\u2019s one of those admittedly silly films that moves so quickly that one rarely has time to question its logic. Consider …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[36,50,49],"class_list":["post-1251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-fiction-movies","tag-action","tag-crime","tag-suspense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}