The Oak Room

The Oak Room is playing games with us as well.

A lot of things are said; a lot is not. It was a dark and stormy night. An audience walks into a film – and stays for the whole 90 minutes, because it is worth it.

This story about stories is best absorbed if you’re not in a hurry. The Oak Room is not long (88 minutes), but the words demand attention.

The Oak Room is a movie that purports to be seen as a dark and twisty backwoods noir but takes so much time getting to where it actually wants to go that by the time the story winds itself up, we’ve lost interest.

This sharply crafted piece talks the talk and finally threatens to walk the walk.

Back and forth The Oak Room goes, without ever building the tension it ostensibly seeks. Instead, it meanders from tale to tale, and the writing isn’t sharp or specific enough to sustain this kind of complex framework.

This cut-and-paste cliche collection could have been written by a machine.