Mark Reviews Movies: THE IMMACULATE ROOM

The Immaculate Room, Screen Media Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 18, 2022

The premise of The Immaculate Room, which has a gimmick that could very well become a reality TV show in the future (if it hasn't been done already), suggests something far more intriguing than the execution of writer/director Mukunda Michael Dewil's movie delivers. We follow a couple, stuck together by choice in a cavernous but spare room in an attempt to win $5 million. All they have to do is stay in this room, which contains only a bed and a bench and a connected bathroom, for 60 days.

There's no television or computer in this space. The two aren't allowed to bring anything into the room except the clothes on their backs, and even those are soon replaced with garments in the style of hospital scrubs. In other words, no phones are permitted, and contact with the outside world is essentially non-existent in here. A computer voice, which offers some helpful tips but mainly scolds the couple if they break any rules, does tell them the general time of day, which is important, since there are no windows in this room painted completely white, either.

When we first meet Mike (Emile Hirsch) and Kate (Kate Bosworth), each of them is as much blank slate as the room itself. They are dating, or they have been off and on, at least, for a notable amount of time. It's long enough for Mike to joke that Kate's idea to split the winnings in half essentially amounts to a pre-nuptial agreement, and her less-than-joking response that he would have to actually propose for that kind of arrangement is an early indication that the couple's stay won't be all fun and games.

The mystery here is Dewil's greatest asset as a storyteller in this case. We only know of these characters what they say to each other, what they do under these extremely isolated circumstances, and how they respond individually and as a couple to being trapped together, without any other kinds of stimulus, for the extent of their stay—the full of it or however long each of them lasts.

That setup makes this tale instantly engaging—since we're learning about these characters and the purpose of the room from the start, with the inherent promise of discovering new things throughout—and gives the room itself a certain, unavoidable level of power. After all, these characters do not exist before or outside of the room within the confines of this story. Everything we learn of and witness from them is intrinsically influenced by their situation.

There's little plot, then, save for how this relationship and these characters evolve or regress over the course of their stay. At first, it's all optimism, because the task—essentially to do nothing with someone each of them loves for two months—seems pretty easy compared to the reward. The two establish a routine, with consistent morning wakeup calls from the computer voice (provided by Gianna Wichelow), regular meals of an odorless and tasteless liquid that provides all the nutrients the body needs, and some laughing over an elaborate clapping game. Mike wants to have sex, too, but Kate is hesitant. After all, there is someone watching them on the camera in the room to make sure they stick to the rules.

Soon enough (An accelerating montage of those routines gives us a sense of time passing, which is a theoretically and practically counterintuitive method), Mike, who's an artist, starts getting bored. Kate, who tries to stick to a strict schedule and gives herself a pep talk in the mirror each morning, becomes subtly but increasingly distant. The source of some of their personal and relationship issues become clear through some arguments and with some outside help from family members who have recorded a message for each of them.

The specificity of these issues—a traumatic event from Mike's past and Kate's parental resentment—gets a bit in the way of Dewil's study of two completely ordinary people under this kind of duress. Within the world of the movie, the room is a psychological/sociological experiment being performed by an unseen, inordinately wealthy man, and to a degree, that's our perspective on this story, too. Dramatically, it's a character study, although not necessarily of two specific characters but of broad types whose behavior, mood, and interactions with each other are defined by their present circumstances. Introducing these precise problems turns the material just enough from open-ended character study toward melodrama.

Dewil cheats the bareness of this premise more than a bit, too. A pistol randomly finds its way into the bathroom, which establishes expectations that we know will have to be paid off at some point, and then, there's the matter of the "treats" the couple can buy to pass the time. One is as simple as a crayon, but another is significant as another person. She's played by Ashley Greene Khoury, who arrives in a state as loaded for jealous conflict as possible.

The Immaculate Room gradually and then suddenly undermines the promising scarcity of its premise. It's as if Dewil doesn't trust the foundations of the drama he has established.

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