Why I love single-set movies.

Many people, when confronted with the notion of being in a single location for over an hour (goodness, sometimes even two hours) will kick and scream and fuss until I eventually agree to watch the latest large-scale world-traversing feature epic. Haha, just kidding, no one out-fusses me.

I recently was lucky enough to be able to see the 2009 film Exam. The basic plot is that a group of people are put into a room for 80 minutes in order to complete an exam, where they're unsure of the question, have a strange set of rules they must follow and can't really trust each other. The movie was refreshing because the characters were actually smart enough to mean they didn't waste 10 of their precious minutes rolling around on the floor crying "WHAT DO WE DO?!? WHAT DO WE DO??" No, they all actually had reasonable ideas, and worked quickly and decently together. Characters true colours are revealed as the film progresses, and we get to see just how bad these characters want the job they're competing for. The characters are well developed (there are some real assholes) and the set moves enough so that the single-set works. It also helps they play with the lighting a bit too.
Now the film isn't perfect; it suffers from some hammy acting, a couple of equally hammy plot points and a touch of hammy dialouge, making for a very hammy movie and I imagine a dish for aquired taste.

You may have heard about the film Buried which turned a couple of heads at Sundance. The film stars Ryan Reynolds, buried in a very confined space underground. You stay with Reynolds the entire movie (no flashbacks!), making the number of camera angles and lighting effects extremely limited. The film recieved generally positive feedback, and any actor able to carry a movie on their own is truly deserving of the highest praise (Sam Rockwell practically did this with last years sadly overlooked Moon).

So why do I love these (arguably) visually dull movies? Simple: They're writers movies. Films and stories in general are, almost without exception, pushed forward by characters and character action. When a film isn't held back by it's set (ironically, most films with a low number of sets are held back... by their budgets), the audiences attention is strictly on the characters. It's why many still claim theatre to be the purest form of screenwriting.

Simply put, whenever we see a movie with only one or two sets, we know we're in for an emotional whirlwind that usually leads to a startling catharsis for the characters. Would Twelve Angry Men as been have memorable (especially this many years later) if it included a court scene? If we saw the titular angry men at home before arriving at the courthouse? No. The film is still relevent because the people don't matter. Their names certainly don't, and their backgrounds are only important when lending information to their decision.

Would Hard Candy have been so... Hard to sit through... if it hadn;t have taken place in one small apartment? If it had been a frantic chase throughout a city, or if investigating "crime scenes" were incoroprated in some way? Say what you will about the film (I certainly have), but it knows what it needs, and it knows how to use what it has.

I advise you all to watch one of the films I've mentioned (Seriously, watch 12 Angry Men if you haven't), even if you don't like it, it will at the very least give you something to think about. To risk sounding cliche, and I'm sure like every single film teacher in the world; do we really need massive heaps of CGI to keep us interested? Sweeping landscape shots I accept in fantasies, but not when they serve to distract (sometimes intentionally) from lazy writing.

I'm looking at you, unobtanium.