Totally agree. The satire nonsense is such a blind misreading of the film.domino harvey wrote:I finally saw this today after studiously somehow avoiding spoilers for over a month-- I figured I had tempted fate enough and I'm really glad I did get to it before its myriad secrets were revealed. I've seen every Fincher but Panic Room and while I'm hardly a fan, this is easily his best film and one of the best of the year, and it does me some sadness to read a thread of people who've yet again seen a different movie than me.
SpoilerShowI was, however, relieved to see Bordwell drew comparisons to Leave Her to Heaven, which is definitely one of the cornerstone cultural markers for this film. And that's fundamentally my issue with reading this chiefly as a work of satire at any of the aforementioned targets, in that this film certainly has a cheeky sense of cynicism, it's the sort found primarily in film noir. And this pic is 100% film noir. I was reminded of Ellroy's perfect and divine in simplicity definition of Film Noir: "You're fucked." The whole film is this message over and over for both Affleck and Pike. Your plans will run afoul in the most comically horrific way possible. Your frame is set so expertly that everything you do just tightens the noose. Nowhere is it more clear than in the finale. From what I gather in this thread this is the "changed ending." Good. The film wouldn't be what it is without it. How perverse for the ultimate answer to be what both previously desired to leave behind. How fucked. How wonderful.
Panic room is a wonderfully juicy b movie piece of genre pulp. It's probably finchers mist purely entertaining film.