TFF Final Round-Up: THE COTTAGE, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and FERMAT'S ROOM pellet reviews

This is my final volley of reviews from this year's Tribeca Film Festival. Try not to cry.

For the sake of my sanity and in order to get done as much as I can in as much time as I can, I'm using my entries from a film journal I keep to record my thoughts on every film I've seen this year, a new year's resolution that I find incredibly helpful. This means I'm automatically alienating myself in my writing from most of you because I'm writing to myself and by releasing them as if they were intended as public reviews, I'm assuming that my reader know more about what's going on in the films than they do. For that, I apologize. I refer you instead to our copious previous coverage of these three films, all of which have been regularly followed as they progressed in their various stages of production and distribution. I'll refer to some links for some much needed context, just in case this is the first time you've read about these films, though I suspect if you're reading this, it's not. So SPOILERS ahead, along with any number of other confusing details that probably make less sense than they should to the uninitiated.

But don't despair, non-existent internet friend. Let the Right One In, won the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature this year and Somers Town's Thomas Turgoose and Piotr Jagiello won for Best Actor in a Narrative Feature Film, which may mean as much as being given a golden spitoon in the long run but it's nice to hear all the same. Think of their non-existent glory as you read these fledgling reviews after the jump.

The Cottage (2007) Dir: Paul William Andrew

Either one of the most poe-faced, intelligent, self-mocking works of horror comedy I’ve seen or one of the most dismal failures. I prefer to believe it’s the former because so many signs point towards that interpretation, including the yawn-inducing baddy the pair has to face off against, the way that their mouth dumb blonde of a hostage is the real monster and how neither of the men make it out alive to savor their victory. The monstrosity in question is the creation of their tepid, testosterone-driven imaginations, a tired cross between Jason Voorhees and Leatherface, but neither the macho man nor his wimpy, impotent brother can best him. That makes the funniest part of the film the meta-play at work between the stock characters and the cardboard boogeyman. It’s a mini horror-universe in caricature form, complete with the big bad men who aren’t as bad or as funny as the evil women that keep them down. They have the opportunity and the motivation to walk away from their generic fates, but as soon as they moronically conform to that unspoken rule of the genre that puts and put bros before hos—I’d say it’s right about when Serkis says, “Fuck the plan, fuck the money. I need to get my brother”—that’s when they’re officially fucked. If it’s not slyly self-mocking, then it’s easily one of the most vapid pastiches produced and deserves nothing but mockery because all of Serkis’ fuming, Shearsmith’s mewling and Ellison’s cleavage combined couldn’t save the film from itself.

Let the Right One In (2008) Dir: Tomas Alfredson

It’s hard to say what about Alfredson’s portrayal of the affair between Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) and Eli (Lina Leanderson) that gets under my skin but I suspect it has something to do with its unchallenging embrace of revenge. Revenge isn’t just kid stuff in the film, as is shown by Lacke’s (Peter Carlberg) need to satisfy his bloodlust by killing Eli or Conny’s brother’s need to whup Oskar. While the film’s stunning expressive aesthetic makes the ice heat up with close-ups and technically impressive camera maneuvers aplenty, there’s something a little too easy about romanticizing a “blood will out” mantra. If we are no better than Eli in our need to keep our rage in check, then what makes Oskar more sympathetic than Conny’s brother or Lacke? John Ajvide Linqvist’s script flows so well and is complimented by Alfredson’s masterful handling of his child actors but there are moments when the film feels like a beautiful piece of clockwork. Watching Lacke’s girl get scratched up by CG cats and then catch fire is necessary for Lacke to eventually boil over and try to kill Eli. That’s not much consolation when it makes the final confrontation between the two feel perfunctory instead of nail-biting. Still, I feared for the characters and laughed with them and cared for them even if they were ciphers for a curiously simplistic moral.

Fermat's Room (2007) Dir: Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopena

The weird spawn of William Castle’s House on Haunted Hill and Vincenzo Natali’s Cube, Fermat’s Room is probably one of the strangest and most interesting answers to the Saw franchise’s idiotic sadistic games. While the characters’ pride themselves on their ability to solve almost any problem tossed their way, they learn that it isn’t the end of the world if that skill suddenly gets washed away. Trapped in a lurid and ornately decorated den, four strangers have to solve “enigmas,” or math riddles, some familiar and some not before the four steam pistons surrounding the room crush them. Saw similarly tries to force its victims to appreciate life after forcing their bodies to pay for your newfound lease on life. There may be no blood but Fermat’s Room is no less heavy on the gimmicky filters, tacky decors and double entendres but it’s actually smart enough to make even its most perfunctory big reveals at least respectable. There’s warmth, humor and plenty of detail-oriented puzzles to be solved at a dizzying pace and an occasional glimmer of originality, something all four Saw films have willfully ignored in favor of convoluted plots, boring gore-drenched tableaux, unpolished, moronic dialogue, stultifying acting and insipid last-minute twists that would make a certain not-so-Happening director cringe. Fermat may not be the sum of its parts but it is a great way to start the summer season, with a jot of generic intelligence and a sly grin.