What we get in the final package is still gripping stuff but Aja here holds back instead of pushing everything to the extreme. Overall, Oxygen has all the makings of an intense psychological nightmare but this French survival horror could've been leaner & meaner by stripping out every single thing that didn't ratchet its unnerving factor. Melanie Laurent is fully committed to her role & tries her best but her character needed more fine-tuning. It does bring the existential aspect into play with the psychologically unsettling scenario but the journey isn't improved by much coz of that. Though the addition of sci-fi angle helps the runtime steer past 100 mins, it doesn't amplify the stakes as all the necessary ingredients to deliver a claustrophobic nail-biter were already in place when things started. Yet, much of the tension & suspense dissipates with the depleting oxygen level in the locked chamber as Aja fails to keep the intensity alive and is also unable to dig deep into the only character in order to make us care.
Directed by Alexandre Aja, the film begins as a pure survival horror with established stakes but as plot progresses, more genre elements start to make their way into the picture and further widen the scope of the story as a result. The resources are minimal, distractions not too many, and its effectiveness as a survival thriller entirely depends on its leading lady's performance, at which Melanie Laurent excels. From the director of High Tension & Crawl, Oxygen (also called Oxygène) concerns a woman who wakes up in a cryogenic chamber with no recollection of how she got in there and attempts to get the maximum mileage out of its barebone premise.
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