"Cats die. Music fades. But art is for keeps."
Inside (2023) is a Psychological Horror / Thriller starring Willem Dafoe, written by Ben Hopkins and directed by Vasilis Katsoupis in his feature directorial debut.
Dafoe stars as Nemo, a high-end art thief trapped in a penthouse after a heist gone wrong. Locked inside with nothing but priceless works of art, he must use all his wit and cunning to survive.
Inside released in theatres on March 17.
Not to be confused with the Netflix film by Bo Burnham.
Previews: Trailer 1
This film contains examples of:
- Ambiguous Ending: The film ends with Nemo destroying the apartment save for three art pieces that he intentionally leaves untouched as an apology to the collector whose property he vandalized, and he makes one final attempt at escape via the skylight. While he succeeds in making it outside, we never see if he actually manages to make it to safety.
- And I Must Scream: Whilst spacious, the apartment Nemo is trapped in little more than a well-furbished prison cell from which there seems no escape; there's no room beneath the door to slip out even paper, he cannot pry or cut a way out and apparently can't even smash a window to escape. To make it worse the air conditioning is malfunctioning so he either cooks or freezes.
- Animal Metaphor: One pigeon also gets trapped in the penthouse's yard, Nemo talks to it until it eventually starves to death.
- Bottle Episode: Since Nemo is entirely confined to the apartment, the film itself counts as one, with almost no major cast members besides Dafoe.
- Cooked to Death: Due to a broken thermostat, the temperature in the apartment is slowly rising, reaching over 48 degrees Celsius (118 Fahrenheit), then it turns on the AC dropping the temperature down to 8 degrees Celsius (46 Fahreheit).
- Determinator: Nemo despairs frequently, but he never gives up. Not even severe malnutrition and a broken leg can stop him from trying one last desperate escape attempt in the closing minutes of the film.
- Fictional Painting: As seen in the "A Solitary Exhibition" featurette, much of the paintings, sculptures, and other new media in the movie were originally commissioned pieces made by professional artists.
- Grossup Closeup: Several of these are shown to indicate the penthouse falling into increasingly messy shambles thanks to Nemo and a lack of running water, among other things. Notable examples include the maggot-infested carcass of the dead pigeon and the result of Nemo using an empty bathtub as a toilet.
- Ironic Hell: Nemo, the art thief, is trapped inside a penthouse surrounded by priceless works of art. At some point, he starts destroying the artwork in his attempt to escape.
- Locked in a Room: Nemo's locked in a soundproof apartment, with no way to contact the outside world, little food, a malfunctioning temperature controller, and nothing but priceless works of art.
- Missed Him by That Much: A housekeeper frequently comes nearby to clean, but due to having earbuds in, she remains completely oblivious to Nemo's cries for help even as she stands outside the door.
- Nobody Poops: Averted. Nemo is shown early on urinating in the apartment's toilet, which doesn't flush. It eventually transpires that he's been using an empty bathtub to contain his faeces, and a good few seconds are devoted to showing just how much he's put into it.
- No OSHA Compliance: Even though near the end Nemo activates the fire sprinklers of at least one entire level of the building causing a flood; nobody comes to the penthouse to check what caused it, despite the massive amount of water damage such a thing would cause in at least more than one story.
- Overly Long Gag: Nemo's Bulgarian Chicken Dinner joke.
- Sanity Slippage: Unsurprisingly, being trapped inside of a completely sealed room with basically no chance of getting out starts to fry Nemo's mind. It starts on his fifth day there with some mild auditory hallucinations and only gets worse.
- Skewed Priorities: When asked by his teacher what he would save if his house was on fire, Nemo says his cat, his sketchbook and a music album. He doesn't think about his family.
- Survival Mantra: "I'm going to Heaven on a hillside." is a phrase Nemo keeps repeating in the final act of the film as he keeps trying to find a way out of the apartment.
