Rodrigo Cortés
Buried

WARNING, THIS REVIEW DOES NOT CONTAIN SPAM, BUT ONLY THE MOST BLATANT CLICHÉS YOU CAN ENCOUNTER AT THE CINEMA DURING A HORROR/THRILLER MOVIE.

It was a dark and stormy night. More precisely, a dark, cold, and rainy Saturday evening. The company I went out with consisted of the classic couple who no longer even remember why they're together and argue about everything, the unlucky/doormat guy on a night out because his (not very attractive) girlfriend is at a dinner with some friends, and the legendary bar playboy who didn't want to hit the clubs for fear that the rain would ruin his shoes and hair. Then there was me, completing the circle of stereotypes, as I was out with a girl for the third time and there was nothing official yet. On such a meteorologically spiteful evening, spending it at the cinema would have been a great idea since it satisfied my two main needs: it was a warm place and allowed me intimacy with my lady. So it was decided, after 45 minutes of doubts and perplexities (as it should be in a group of killjoys), 2 beers each, and a few blasphemous phrases, we reached a compromise: off to the nearest Multiplex. Unfortunately, all the more interesting films had already started or had absurd seats. The only one offering us hope was the film praised at the Sundance Film Festival: "Buried."

On the poster at the entrance, I spot adjectives like "Hitchcockian" "claustrophobic" and legendary epithets (masterpiece ending) that I hadn't read in a review for some time and which, therefore, give me hope. The selected seats are fantastic, central and in the third-to-last row, the film will start in twenty minutes, and the room is still empty. I'm in a favorable position: on the left is the girl, and on the right, there are 2 free seats. Great, this alone would be worth the ticket price. While we delegate our unlucky friend, with motivational slaps, to go buy popcorn, I start to realize that not everything that glitters is gold. The room slowly begins to fill up. The target audience seems to be males (16-22 years) fond of comics and video game applications, as well as lovers of the noble art of "DIY," complying with the fact that they are openly single by choice (of the others). Ultimately, a couple in their 35s arrives, all radical-chic, probably returning from a wine tasting or poetry reading from the Stalinist era. As expected, as soon as they identify their seats, the man (a poor man's Roger Waters, dressed like Carlo Pastore in the dark) signals me to remove the jackets and popcorn container from the seat to my right so his partner can sit (an anorexic blonde visibly uncomfortable being in places where the highest classes mingle with common rabble). I pretend not to notice her disgusted look at my worn-out shoes and tend to my partner, who in the meantime is trying to listen to the argument that our friends' couple has started since they sat down. The reason? I don't want to know and don't care.

The trailers start. Vulgar comments about the actresses and Italian films arriving in theaters in the coming weeks. Nonsense, in short. The company's playboy makes an unflattering comment about Jennifer Aniston's physique, and the girl gets mad at her boyfriend because (she claims) she saw him nodding and smiling. Meanwhile, I get distracted by a mischievous comment from my date, almost choke eating a popcorn, and while coughing, drop more than half the container at the feet of Miss Nose In The Air to my right. I don't even apologize, damn it. I try to resume the conversation thread when the film starts. Okay, in the first 4 minutes, it's just darkness and the protagonist's frantic breathing trapped in the coffin, so go ahead with the intense petting; no one notices anyway. If it weren't for the unnecessary comments from the guy next to us trying to impress by unleashing philological quotes at a volume slightly below a foghorn, it would have been nice to exchange tender gestures. But now the film gets into the right rhythm: a cell phone rings, and the story begins against the inexorable countdown of oxygen slowly running out. Hanging by a thread (the telephone network), the plot unfolds for almost an hour and a half, and you can't imagine how many plot twists can happen in a coffin a meter underground (no, really! I'm not sarcastic). During the "mother" scene in particular, the girl grips my hand so tightly it nearly fractures, while on my right, there’s a continuous background commentary on how this scene is a remake of another from 1957, where that was true cinema... what a pain. The few girls in the room alternate incoherent phrases like "That's gross!!" or "Run!!" (but where?!?!), while the more pragmatic males comment with Venetian austerity, “Che sfigà che te si, vecio!” (trans. you're really unlucky, my friend). At some point, insults and popcorn start raining from the rows behind, the snob couple gets up and leaves, speculating on renting the cinema just for themselves next time, I chuckle and make myself comfortable.

The finale is a very well-done climax, so much so that at that moment (I admit it) I’m left open-mouthed until the last seconds that give us a masterpiece ending (as written by Repubblica) full of surprising genius. But, as most times, even this genius falls victim to the crowd's misunderstanding, who when they truly realize THAT'S the ending (evidently from some clues like the credits and the lights coming on), start booing, cursing the director and the overpaid critics of the newspapers. Even for our group, the film did not have a positive impact: the playboy couldn't pick up any girl (since there were 2 or 3 in the entire theater), the eternally engaged couple continued to fight before, during, and after the movie, up to the return home, where (I hope) they had a bit of "weekend sex," while our unlucky friend received a call from his girlfriend informing him that during dinner she got drunk, cheated on him with a waiter in the restaurant's bathroom but still loved him and wanted to fix things.

As for the guys behind us, (who were American soldiers on leave) they paid extra for the theater’s cleaning and a fine for taking their shoes off during the film screening (it seems the snob couple protested at the box office for a ticket refund) so I got away by blaming them for the mess under my seat.

Final thoughts. I liked the film: it has a good pace, makes girls scream, and the ending left me satisfied. Kind of like coupling should be. But to tell the truth, I liked even more the girl I went out with, also because I watched her more than the screen. Indeed, can I put her photo instead of the poster's in this review? In any case, I base my rating on that. That’s All! JC