Open Windows is a technical masterpiece and creative achievement. Unfortunately, it goes too far and then it keeps going. Writer/director Nacho Vigalondo completely pulls off the format, which is an entire movie on a computer screen. However, the story becomes such a Russian nesting doll it loses credibility.
Nick Chambers (Elijah Wood) won a contest for a date with movie star Jill Goddard (Sasha Grey). Nick is waiting in his hotel room watching a livestream Q&A for her latest film when the voice of Chord (Neil Maskell) tells him Jill has cancelled the date, but Chord can connect Nick to the video feed from Jill’s phone. Pretty soon, Chord is manipulating Nick to do his bidding, and poor Nick can only watch what Chord has in store for Jill.
Described as a 21st Century Rear Window, Open Windows is more like Nick of Time over Skype. Oh crap, I just realized his name is even Nick. Chord makes Nick perform tasks that are morally questionable, and eventually get Nick in too deep to back out. Open Windows does work much better than Nick of Time, up to a point, but its failures are failures of ambition, not of execution.
The camera zooms in on different video windows of the computer screen at different times, depending on what is most important to see. It’s all organic, really intuitive to watch, illustrating just how ingrained online viewing has become that an entire movie can play out in the format without question. Each frame is therefore comprised of several long takes playing out simultaneously. Even when the camera zooms in on one, if the edge of another frame is still in the shot, that take is still running. Maybe there is some digital trick to crop out the unseen portion of that frame, but the effect is to feel like several scenes are happening concurrently.
Chord’s ultimate objective is rather far fetched, and becomes far less compelling than the simple human in danger with which the story began. It just devolves into found footage tropes and spirals into hackers within hackers manipulating the story. There is so much exposition and new backstory introduced late in the movie that you wonder why Vigolando didn’t choose any of the seemingly natural endpoints that would have been more satisfying.
Open Windows can probably be considered a win just by making a comprehensible movie with this technique, and it is perhaps better to swing for the fences than wallow in safe mediocrity. I can’t accept that though. I think there was a perfect middle ground in which Open Windows was a simple Hitchcockian thriller with a modern twist. I still have to say it’s worth watching, but perhaps measured expectations will improve its impact.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
