Inside is a psychological thriller about an art thief Nemo (Willem Dafoe) who gets trapped in a penthouse after a heist goes wrong. As each day passes, his chances of escape and his sanity dwindle.
The film really speaks to the ideas of what solitude can do to someone. Nemo spends weeks trapped in the penthouse with a true scarcity of resources at his disposal. We see that at first, he is desperate to escape, trying to break windows and carve a hole through a door. As he comes to accept his new reality, he starts doodling in his sketchbook and watching the security cameras of the building, seeming ok just passing the time by. As the days become weeks, he has been alone for too long and his mental stability is no more. He starts talking to himself, fantasizing about people he has been seeing in the cameras, and having hallucinations. Physically, he is deteriorating as well. He’s constantly dehydrated as there is no running water in the penthouse and hungry as there is a limited amount of food left.
I will be completely honest, I did not really like this movie. It is less than 2 hours long and still somehow drags its feet. Within the first 10 or so minutes, Nemo entered the penthouse, got the pieces of art he wanted, and set off the alarm, locking himself in. The rest of the movie is about him just slowly losing his mind and trying to survive. There are just too many scenes of him not doing anything productive.
What I think is the issue here is that Inside has no urgency. There’s no race against the cops or the owner returning that causes Nemo to move, he seems content just taking his time. Hell, it’s even a plot point that there are limited resources in the penthouse with the owner gone, but there is just no rush to get out. It really is an interesting idea for a movie, but there needed to be something that moves the plot forward. I understand it’s a slow burn about the mental state of Nemo decaying, but it just was tough to stay invested.
There are also some massive plot holes that blow up the story as well. As I said, within the first 10 minutes, Nemo sets off the security alarm, locking himself in. The person he’s robbing lives in a gorgeous, rich building. There’s no way in hell a security alarm gets set off in that building and the cops are not on the way. There’s a similar situation towards the end that gets no outside attention which is just preposterous. Plot holes usually won’t ruin a movie for me unless they are this impactful to a story.
Chalk this movie up to another “Willem Dafoe losing his mind” movie. Dafoe’s performance is this film’s saving grace. I feel bad saying it, but he really is in his bag when his characters just lose all sense of reality. He has his last real interaction with another human in the first 10 minutes and spends the rest of the movie working through his thoughts and feelings on his imminent situation. It really is incredible to watch him devolve into a madman in such a luxurious-looking environment. His character Nemo is well-written, as we learn immediately that he only values art. Throughout his descent into madness, that trait never disappears.
Another thing I did like was the setting and how Inside was shot. This movie takes place in one penthouse the entire time and it’s gorgeous. There are a bunch of rooms we explore and some beautiful pieces of art hung up all around. This movie took the subject matter very seriously. The shooting of this movie was also well done. It’s shot in more of a monotonous way, but it highlights just how monotonous the situation was for Nemo. It mixed in some creative shots, obfuscating the background where the action is to focus on something seemingly insignificant in the foreground. I thought it was a neat touch.
Final Thoughts
All in all, I was slightly disappointed with Inside. Even with a great performance out of Dafoe, I found myself constantly checking how much longer the movie had. I had high expectations and some other ideas on how the plot could’ve played out, but the story just wasn’t presented in an interesting way.
