The Oak Room: Everything Is Not What It Seems

Every now and then when I’m having one of those “let’s just pick something at random” weeks, I’ll hit something that isn’t really a scary movie by definition. But if they evoke tension or unease or discomfort, I’ll allow them. And that’s kind of what happened this week. The Oak Room (a suitably cryptic title) is described as being a story about a drifter paying a debt by telling a story to a grizzled bartender. And that sounds like it’s gonna be some kind of spooky-ass ghost story, but it really isn’t. Instead, it’s a neo-noir film with an interlocking puzzle-piece narrative, told through a series of twisting, nested flashbacks. Which is a nice structure for a story, and it does have its moments, but it’s unfortunately let down by clunky writing, some missed opportunities in the story, and performances that are loud and cartoony when they should be quiet and subtle.

It's a snowy winter night in rural Ontario - one of those nights when it just keeps coming down, when the roads are going to be rough going, and when the power’s going to cut out at some point - and Paul is closing up the bar he owns. He’s sweeping up, emptying the cash register, getting ready to turn off the neon sign outside when a figure pulls up to the front door. Paul tells them they’re closed, but they come in anyway. It’s a younger man named Steve (almost nobody in this movie has a last name) and Paul recognizes him. He isn’t happy to see Steve. Steve’s father worked (and drank) himself into an early grave trying to put together the money to send Steve to college. And then Steve flunked out after a semester or two. Steve didn’t even come home for the funeral. He owes multiple people money, including Paul, and people rougher than Paul.

Steve came back to claim his father’s worldly possessions, but Paul has other ideas. He wants to make sure Steve pays what he owes. So he makes a phone call, to one of those people rougher than him, and then they wait. And Steve tells Paul he’ll pay his share to Paul with a story about what happened a night or two ago at a bar called the Oak Room, the next town over.

He’s sure Paul’s going to be interested in hearing it.

The scope of this film is very limited, almost cozy, as befits its origins as a play. The action is limited to two bars, a pig farm, and a rural highway, in both the past and present. The limited setting works for it, though, as it creates a feeling that what we’re watching are sort of variations on a theme - a conversation, a flashback, two or sometimes three people, in vignettes connected by the conversation between Paul and Steve in the present. It’s a basic setup being executed multiple times, but with each individual instance contributing something to a larger narrative. It’s almost fractal in nature, and until the very end all of the action is in the things people say, what they reveal about themselves (or don’t), the implications of every new revelation.

So the narrative structure is interesting, and it’s well-shot, making good use of snowy nights, overcast winter days with fitful sun, and the warm amber glow of a bar at night, as if the light through the beer bottles is cast over the entire space. The soundtrack is mournful guitar, clacks and thumps that communicate both a sense of rural desolation and brewing unease. There’s the feeling that there’s something there to grasp, that the pieces are being put in front of us if only we know how to put them together, to recognize what’s important and what isn’t. And it mostly pays off, (and lets the end be a little ambiguous, which works well) though there are some loose threads here and there that feel like they’re meant to be important, to lead to some additional revelation, but don’t. Because it’s a lot of table-setting that doesn’t pay off until the third act, it can feel a little aimless until things come together. It does have an effectively mournful cast over it, to its credit. There’s a lot to this film about regrets, about irreversible bad choices, about realizing too late what mistakes you’ve made, about waking up one morning and realizing just how old you’ve gotten and how little you have to show for it.

But all of this is struggling against writing that is as hackneyed as it gets and performances that tend mostly toward the two-dimensional. Everyone’s just a little too much, a little too archetypical to be believable as people, and in most cases they’re really, really annoying archetypes. In the case of a character like Steve, it makes sense and there’s a weaselly furtiveness to him that does work, but Paul is all macho bluster and posturing and it gets pretty grating pretty quickly. The dialogue is mostly generic tough-guy talk (like, who in real life actually calls someone “college boy?”) and/or clumsy exposition of the “you have a lot of nerve coming here after [insert string of events that both characters wouldn’t need to actually restate out loud]!” variety. As often as not, characters make speeches or perform monologues instead of talking, and almost no opportunity for profanity or aggro chest-beating is left on the table. It’s the kind of story that works best in a naturalistic, downplayed style and that isn’t to be found here at all. Well, that’s not entirely true - there’s a flashback with Steve’s father that generates some real pathos, but it’s an isolated moment in what is otherwise a college sophomore’s attempt at David Mamet.

Although the structure is interesting and at least as far as that goes the filmmakers don’t insult our intelligence- we’re still left to figure out the implications of what we’re hearing and seeing for ourselves, which is good - the details are aggressively pedestrian, like a house that’s been designed by M.C. Escher and then decorated with “Live, Laugh, Love” wall art on every surface. Given how much meta-commentary there is in the dialogue about the nature of stories and how important it is to spice up the truth, I think I can see where the failings come from.

IMDB entry
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