Pity poor Lisa. She wakes in what looks to be a high-tech air duct, but with no idea where she is, how she got there or why. Only the gadget encircling her wrist — part flashlight, part timepiece — gives her an indication: It’s not good.
Sure enough, Lisa (Gaia Weiss, The Legend of Hercules) is part of a truly twisted game, forced to crawl through a maze of pipes of varying circumference — none comfortable for her or the Meander viewer. That goes double when the pipes start retracting in size as she scurries through.
You could say if a saving grace exists for her, it’s that the pipes aren’t loaded with surprise traps!
But you’d be wrong, because the pipes are loaded with surprise traps: fire, water, acid, wire and — take a breath; you’ll need it — much, much more.
Little dialogue notwithstanding, how can a film consisting almost entirely of a woman maneuvering her way through dark, tight passageways be compelling? Doesn’t matter, because Hostile writer and director Mathieu Turi succeeds with just that — perhaps too well, as Meander quickly grows so increasingly claustrophobic, I had to look away a few times just in case my daily dose of Lisinopril weren’t strong enough to keep my blood pressure at a manageable level.
I had no such reaction to watching Ryan Reynolds or Stephen Dorff trapped in their respective wooden coffin and car trunk for the whole of their also-respective Buried and Brake. But there’s something about Meander that elicits raw panic; going out on a limb, I’m guessing it’s the potential to get stuck. The inability to turn around. The absence of knowledge of what lie ahead. The praying it’s not a sharp curve. Hell, the poster alone sends me into a loop-de-loop of anxiety.
Comparisons to Cube and Saw are not only inevitable, but well-founded, as Turi merges the core ideas of both without fully imitating either, yet reaching a final scene that may disappoint most. One element of Meander, however, is incontrovertible: the sheer bravery of Weiss in her performance and as a performer. She made me feel every inch of confinement to a point of oppression; even with the element of make-believe, I don’t know how she did it. —Rod Lott