Imagine waking up in a dark confined space. Struggling for breath you fumble around, finally finding your lighter, igniting the flame you realise you are trapped inside a coffin. As you bang against the lid of your small wooden prison, sand pours down through the cracks. Slowly, the realisation dawns on you, you have been buried alive somewhere in the Iraqi dessert. This is the predicament facing Paul Conroy, the kidnapped American truck driver played by Ryan Reynolds in Buried. In a race against time Paul tries to get help using his only link to the outside world, the mobile phone his captors left for him to negotiate his ransom with an unwilling embassy. Buried created quite a buzz at the Sundance Film Festival, the concept of limiting a film entirely to one actor in the single location of a coffin left some viewers dazzled and others unimpressed, and there is no doubt that it will continue to split the opinion of audiences on its wider release.
For most people the thought of spending an entire film solely in the company of Ryan Reynolds is a horrifying prospect, but to his credit he does a good job in his portrayal of Paul. His performance carries the film and shows a depth that has thus far been lacking in any of his other work. A lot of the credit for this should go to writer Chris Sparling. His script is intelligent, believable, and tense. The time in the coffin never becomes dull as the simplest things become arduous for Paul, reaching for a dropped item in the confined space, trying to stem the flow of leaking sand, watching the battery on his phone slowly die. Paul is a well written character and there is something very real in his fear and desperation. There isn’t much room for development of the other characters in the film, they appear purely as voices on the other end of the phone, but Sparling uses these conversations to explore the character of Paul.
It would seem reasonable to assume that Buried would be visually dull considering the action never leaves the confines of the coffin. But director Rodrigo Cortés does a commendable job with the camera work, using zooms, pans, lighting, and quick edits to great effect. Whilst it may not win any awards for cinematography Buried does demonstrate what can be achieved when film making is stripped down to basics. However, movies are a visual medium and despite its unique and intelligent delivery Buried is still essentially just a man in a box for ninety minutes. Cortés decision not to use flashbacks or cut away shots of the people Paul talks to is brave and helps to maintain the intensity of the film, but it may serve to antagonise the short attention spans of viewers craving the next Avatar or Scott Pilgrim. The makers of Buried deserve credit for what they have achieved, a clever and original thriller. But it is doubtful that the film will be able to transfer critical acclaim garnered at film festivals into financial success in the multiplexes.
Review by Elliot Hyams
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