Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Inside Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman June 17, 2023

Today’s cinema landscape is hopelessly barren of creativity and human-interest stories. Rare, these days, is the film that takes the time or makes the effort to do something that is both original and simple. Paterson quickly comes to mind as one such film. Another is Inside, the story of an art heist gone wrong, but the similarities to other plotlines end there. Rather than the usual "on the run" story elements, the character finds himself trapped inside a malfunctioning "smart home" and deprived of even the bare necessities for life sustainment and comfort. Rather than another wash-rinse-repeat film that is devoid of draw and depth, Inside focuses on the will to survive within a very familiar yet unusually hostile climate while also exploring the slow descent into madness brought about by unpredictable conditions, thirst, hunger, and hopelessness with the world literally on the other side of a door and the other side of a window. The film is not perfect, but it's perfectly novel and captivating, eschewing the usual cinema structure to focus on a quiet and contemplative story of the abundance of solitude and dwindling of sanity in the midst of broken-down modern living.

Inside evolves with its character devolution. The film begins with the break-in which results in Nemo (Willem Dafoe), a skilled art thief, finding himself trapped when an alarm triggers and the apartment goes into automatic lockdown. Soon, he finds himself hopelessly stuck: windows won't break and doors won't open. Food is sparse. The water is turned off. The home's inhabitants are gone for the long haul. Nobody can hear him inside, and he has seemingly no recourse to contact the outside world. As the situation grows ever more dire, he finds himself constantly forced to improvise and adapt to surprisingly harsh conditions and a lack of basic necessities that threaten his body and, beyond, his sanity.

There are two primary points of focus in the film. One is the physical constraints of Nemo's imprisonment and the other is the mental break he experiences. At first, the former takes center stage. The film follows Nemo trying various methods of escape to no avail. Quickly, he realizes that there's no means of escape. But rather than simply find himself trapped, he deals with viscous heat when the thermostat goes haywire and heats the apartment beyond 100 degrees: livable, but miserable, and sweating out precious water that he cannot easily replace. As time goes by, he discovers a few sources of water, at one point licking the inside of the freezer. He discovers a few bits of food, enough to sustain him, but not enough to satisfy him. Nemo's struggles to survive take center stage early, but it is the mental decline that serves to advance the plot later. Certainly, even in his emotional and mental deterioration, he holds to moments of lucidity and continues to devise new methods to attempt escape, but he also hallucinates and expresses himself through crude art. “Art is for keeps,” he says, and it is art that brought him to the apartment and it is art that reveals his internal degradation.

The film does a fine job of making a very large space feel claustrophobic, not because it is claustrophobic, but because the environment essentially chokes the life out of the character. Nemo finds himself battling on a number of fronts, and the home is his worst enemy, whether its spartan food reserves, lack of running water, or the unpredictable temperature extremes that push him to his physical limit or the prison-like vice the home wraps around his mind as escape seems increasingly hopeless. There is very little dialogue. Mercifully, Nemo does not provide steady voiceover narration or talk aloud to himself with regularity. Certainly, he does engage in the latter, but not to excess. The film expertly builds the solitude and presents the various sensations that result with effectively uneasy realism, placing the viewer in Nemo's place and making for a debilitating and suffocating experience for the audience, too.

The film is far from dull from its lack of dialogue and location changes. Quite the opposite, in fact, it is very riveting and a breath of fresh air in an otherwise dull and predictable cinema landscape. The movie does take a few liberties for effect. Why, for example, did Nemo not simply make a huge sign that read "TRAPPED AND DYING INSIDE PLEASE HELP" to hang on the expansive windows when it became clear that escape was not an option, especially as he desperately tries to get attention through the front door, but never through the windows. Fortunately, these questions and a few other more obvious potential solutions to his dilemma (one of which he does try towards film's end) never detract from a terrific movie of confinement, hopelessness, and the human condition.

Inside Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Inside is not a film that is primed to push displays to their limits, but the basic structural elements satisfy throughout the watch. There is a good bit of source noise in lower light shots and some softer corners inherent to the digital photography. This is not at all a remarkable image, but it is a very stable, adequate image that seems to perfectly reflect the film's natural visual condition. Clarity is fine, revealing the finely appointed details in the apartment that gradually lose their luster as they are abused in various forms or fashion. Close-ups show plenty of skin wrinkles and sweat on Nemo's face. Colors are fine, though the backgrounds are fairly spartan with the predominance of white and gray in the location. Black levels are fine, as are skin tones.

Inside Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Inside's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack is spacious and revealing. For a film of such quietness and solitude, the track offers some moments of ample surround extension and low-end excellence. There is some good, healthy, and aggressive surround content to be heard in the opening moments as a helicopter tears through the stage. Blaring alarms announce that Nemo will be sealed inside the house a few moments later, immersing the listener in the chaos of the moment. To offer many more specific audio details would be to spoil some of the moments in the film, but suffice it to say that when it is necessary for the track to expand, expand it does and to the fullness of the 5.1 configuration. What little music there is plays with width and clarity, and what little dialogue there is presents with firm front-center placement, good clarity, and consistent prioritization.

Inside Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Inside contains only a few titled Deleted Scenes (1080p, 5:35). There is no top menu screen. The film begins playback immediately upon disc insertion. There is a crude in-film pop-up menu which allows access to the deleted scenes as well as a basic setup menu to toggle subtitles on and off. No DVD or digital copies are included with purchase. This release does not ship with a slipcover.

Inside Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Inside earns high marks for originality, creativity, passionate and painstaking focus, and a refusal to pander to cliche. It's a very well-acted movie with Dafoe delivering a career performance that challenges him inside and out, both of which he handles to incredibly powerful effect. The film is easily one of my favorites from this year. Universal's Blu-ray is featureless beyond a few deleted scenes, but video and audio are very good. Very highly recommended.