Chatroom

Before I set to record this film, that was shown on Film 4 last night, I presumed it'd be a trite U.S. comedy/horror, full of gross-out and stoned slackers.

How pleasantly surprised I was to find it to be a deep, unpredictable British psychological thriller that's high on design and imagination. Yes, the actors look like they've escaped off sets of U.K teen dramas such as Skins, but they are playing characters that that market already caters for.

It's quite neat how the protagonist, Aaron Johnson, (Will) is accessing the chat-room in question via his PC or smartphone but is also then seen within it. As we soon get to know, Will's psychological make-up and difficulties are complex and largely unexplained. Is the chat-room itself purely in his mind and is the labyrinth of other rooms that we see at the start also only in his imagination? If so, that's quite a neat way of adding extra texture and substance that's already there.

The challenging soundscapes and things like the animations add extra meat to the body of expression that director Hideo Nakata uses - and I personally liked them and thought they added to the film. Some of the discussions on serious emotional conditions and suicide may help those who are exposed to those feelings and experiences, or they may not - depending on how mentally well one is. But at least it raises them, which is quite brave.

I don't necessarily think that the "hammy" acting that many have criticised is out of place here - touching and nuanced performances would be out of place in this aggressively symbolic and stylised movie. And, when one types on Facebook, with modern, abbreviated cyber-speak and even more so with Twitter, then dialogue is even more stilted, with even less room for delicate expression.

The other characters add to the mixture of messed-up heads and some social comment on what is acceptable and what isn't gets some interesting airing. I think many viewers who've come back from the pub and expected a simple cat and mouse cyber-bullying flick may have well been unprepared for how deep and complex this thriller is and been put off by that. It's a brave and imaginative film; flawed, yes. A nice bonus for those of us who've visited the locations such as Camden Lock and London Zoo are indeed, the familiar locations.

Saw this at a London hotel preview screening today.

Top marks for effort in trying to translate internet chat rooms onto the screen. It did take me quite a while to adjust to the visual interpretations of online cyberworld chatting but having said that, it was very cleverly done if a bit stagy. This is not a horror film. Despite the surrealistic online interpretation, this was first and foremost a dark teenage drama that quite effectively highlights the dangerous mental traps that socially withdrawn youngsters can face online in real life. Maybe parents of teenagers who spends all their time on the internet, may well find this to be a horror film and start taking away their kids computers, then push a football into their hands.

Of course this being cinema, liberties need to be taken with plausibility to turn this intriguing drama into a dark thriller. But it works. Its just that it took a heck of a long time to really get going with the main plot. The dialogue also felt very sluggish. The young actors however, were very good and did well to emote their feelings convincingly.

I was very bewildered at the inclusion of a couple of stop motion animated cartoons which I get the impression were supposed to be darkly funny but I did not find it in the least bit amusing. Maybe that was the idea but it served no purpose in the flow of the movie for me. Also, this being a British Film Four production, it feels so, and you wont find any money spent on special effects apart from a change of wallpaper in the chat rooms.

Overall though, this is a very good thought provoking film with decent performances from the young cast. It is an effective thriller but very sluggish until it really picks up momentum in the 3rd act.

It's a rather odd movie, this Chatroom. Most of the story (not all) takes part in cyberspace, which is visualized in an interesting way. The chatroom is not shown through a computer screen with typed text, but as a real room where our characters meet. This gives this movie quite a strange feel, theatrical at points, but it is quite effective.

Will is the guy behind the chatroom. It all starts out fairly innocent but slowly we get drawn into his real intentions. The people who come in his chatroom all have their own issues. They are lonely in real life, traumatized or misunderstood, and in the chatroom they find people who they can tell their stories to. At first this seems to have a healing effect, but slowly we see that all is not what it seems to be.

What this movie shows, IMO, is the loneliness many people face, and also the dangers of using internet for our main communication. Like Will's mum tells him at one point; 'You can not help yourself if you are only talking to strangers. You need to communicate with us.' The plot is not too difficult to figure out and quite predictable, but it's worked out reasonably well and for me, the movie just got under my skin. There is no winner in this movie. I would not name this to be a thriller, but more a psychological drama. The feeling I am most left with is sadness.

Though this movie doesn't come close to the strength Hideo Nakata's 'Ringu' or 'Dark Water' have, and has a whole different feel to it, I do consider it worth watching.

One of the best aspects of this movie (which is NOT, as it has been marketed, a horror movie) is the depiction of the internet into a physical space. It is really, really well done, and anyone (even slightly) familiar with the world of chatrooms will be blown away by the realism.

The movie goes back and forth between "real life" (the outside world) and internet life (the conversations and chats of the protagonists, here represented into a physical reality, so as not to spend an hour and 46 minutes filming youth typing on a keyboard).

It is not a horror movie, but rather a good psychological thriller, with the story of a disturbed teen who tries to alleviate his own misery by making others miserable. It is also a good look into the seedier, sleazier parts of the internet, where anything can happen, and where violence (although entirely psychological) can be very, very real.

Five troubled teenagers connect to the chatrooom "Chelsea Teens!" in Internet to meet each other and talk in a self-help group. When the depressive Jim decides to commit suicide, the destructive sociopath William lures and pushes him to the edge to force him to kill himself.

The storyline of "Chatroom" is intriguing since the author uses a physical room to depict the conversations of the teens as if they were happening in the real world.

Unfortunately this promising and interesting concept is the only good thing in this boring and shallow film. The execution with several subplots keeps going back and forth from Internet to the real world but they are unattractive and maybe indicated for teens. In the end, I was no longer paying attention to this annoying flick. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Chat - A Sala Negra" ("Chat - The Black Room")

Note: On 04 July 2023, I saw this film again, aware of the plot and of the dangers of social media (I do not have any social media, only a blog). This time, I found "Chatroom" better and better. My conclusion is that this film deserves to be seen at least twice. My vote is seven.