Open Windows Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

Open Windows Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 14, 2015

By the time Elijah Wood and Sasha Grey are ported whole cloth into a kind of quasi-virtual reality toward the end of Open Windows, in a conceit that plays something like Alfred Hitchcock attempting to direct Tron, one can almost—almost—forget that this odd and fitfully captivating film actually began with a faux trailer for what looks like a cross between Night of the Living Dead and The Day the Earth Stood Still. The patently ridiculous trailer that starts out Open Windows with a bang (or at least a flying bowling ball) is so completely outré that it tends to set an impossibly high bar that not even the stratospheric concept (a merely “high” concept is frankly inadequate in this context) that informs this thriller written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo, a Spanish filmmaker who attracted quite a bit of interest with his previous efforts Timecrimes and Extraterrestrial (not to be confused with this release). Open Windows relies on a number of gimmicks which are initially quite intriguing, but which ultimately can’t quite support the increasingly labyrinthine structure that Vigalondo attempts to construct. Superfan Nick Chambers (Elijah Wood) thinks he’s come to Austin, Texas as the winner of a sweepstakes of sorts where he gets to have dinner with his favorite ingenue film star, petulant actress Jill Goddard (Sasha Grey). Nick runs a website devoted to Goddard, and this seems to be the perfect opportunity to not only confess his admiration (obsession?) with the girl face to face, but to also maybe get some “exclusive” information that will make his site even more popular. Nick is soon disabused of the notion that he’s going to meet Jill, however, when a mysterious caller contacts him and informs him Jill has called the dinner off (simply because she can, evidently). The caller offers a “consolation prize” of sorts to Nick, namely an “all access pass” to Jill’s private activity, whether that be via her smartphone or computer or indeed in her hotel room, once Nick is provided with top secret software that allows his camera to penetrate solid exterior walls to spy on what goes on behind closed doors. This may all sound at least relatively interesting, but Open Window’s presentation is its most unique element—aside from that opening trailer for Jill’s latest science fiction “spectacular,” the entirely of the film is told via “windows” that pop up on Nick’s laptop, or at least various cameras that, Go Pro-like, take “selfies” of various participants (with or without that vaunted selfie stick). (It should be noted that even the opening trailer is ultimately revealed to be streaming to Nick's laptop, though it is presented in all its widescreen "glory" in the film's opening moments.)

Vigalondo has a history with Austin, having seen his Spanish language films have their American rollouts there, and in fact as part of Open Windows’ debut he went on record during SXSW stating that he wanted to approach the ideas of internet intrusion and loss of privacy in somewhat the same way Mike Nichols did in Closer. That might be wishful thinking on Vigalondo’s part, for two more obvious antecedents might be (on the plus side) Hitchcock’s iconic Rear Window and (on the decidedly minus side) Sliver, the film which apparently proved that some Ira Levin novels couldn’t make the jump into the cinematic medium. The voyeuristic qualities of Open Windows are handled in a relatively straightforward, unironic fashion, to the point that Wood spends most of the film staring into Nick’s webcam or other closed circuit lenses like security cams around hotels with a series of appalled looks transfixing his face.

Open Windows relies on a whole series of overly convoluted gimmicks to establish its premise. Putting aside the entire presentation issue for a moment, the film still wades through an onslaught of quickly established data points and relationships that more or less need to be taken at face value—until, of course, the inevitable, supposedly mind bending twist at the end. Nick is a nerd who runs a website. Check. His “dream date” is a bust. Check. Suddenly there’s this mysterious guy named Chord (voice of Neil Maskell) all over Nick’s computer telling Nick to engage in all sorts of illegal activities and providing Nick with the technology (both hardware and downloads) to perform everything from surveillance to listen in on private phone calls. Chec—wait, what? In the first of several plot elements that simply must be acceded to in order for Open Windows to proceed, suddenly Nick is contacted by an all knowing, all seeing presence named Chord, who then goes on to direct Nick first to spy on Jill, and then to actually start doing more dangerous things like getting her to strip on camera and, later, physically assault Jill’s agent.

There’s a passing threat of blackmail once Nick does assault the agent and Chord of course gets it all recorded, but even then Open Windows simply becomes more and more ludicrous as Nick continues to carry out some nefarious plan on the part of Chord. This is nowhere more evident than in the sudden appearance of the next computer master hackers, a French group that contacts Nick out of the blue thinking he’s some superhacker named Nevada. At this point the fact that Jill’s life seems to be in serious danger has almost been lost in the steady accrual of convoluted plot points.

There's a none too subtle but still compelling subtext in Open Windows that offers a perhaps hyperbolically paranoid view of just how little privacy any of us really has, especially in a world full of high tech gizmos like Chord seems to have cornered the market on. And the presentation itself of course is both appropriate and appropriately "meta," though it struggles to maintain narrative coherence in the end run, when a series of revelations and the weird, hallucinatory closing scene may confound some viewers.

Open Windows Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Open Windows is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a bit of a difficult film to give a typical technical review to, since everything in the film (other than the misleading opening of the faux trailer) is delivered through a variety of less than high definition platforms like laptop streams, closed circuit security footage, webcams and the like. Some of this footage is intentionally lo-fi looking, and some has been further distressed (the Skype-like calls with the French hacker group being a notable example). With other spycam techniques like infrared photography also being utilized, there's a wide disparity in sharpness and clarity throughout this presentation, as well as with color reproduction. Noise creeps into some of the darker material, but I frankly wonder if some of that might have been intentional, too.

Open Windows Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Open Windows' lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is surprisingly aggressive, creating a neatly claustrophic soundstage that begins to open up and finally explode (literally, in a wonderful booming LFE rumble) once Nick gets out of the hotel room and into Austin. There's not much spatial differentiation in voice placement, but the surrounds are nicely used for a glut of sound effects and ambient environmental noise and a kind of pulsing, trance like score.

Open Windows Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Open Windows (1080p; 15:51) is a pretty standard EPK with interviews and the like, though there is some fun behind the scenes footage included.


• Visual Effects Reel (1080p; 1:44)


• Trailer (1080p; 1:20)

Open Windows Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Open Windows has a decent premise and an intriguing presentation, but it simply cannot sustain its conceit, especially once the plot becomes less and less credible as it goes along. Wood spends virtually the entire film looking like someone just told him the truth about Santa Claus, and perhaps it's no surprise that Grey is probably the most convincing when she's taking off her clothes. Technical merits are very good to excellent for those considering a purchase.