Six people wake up in a surreal form of prison with no memory of how they got there. They are confronted by a series of 14 x 14 ft rooms, all of which bear a circuit-board like design and distinguished only by varying colours. There are six hatches in each room (in the four walls, ceiling and floor) leading to other rooms.
The catch? Some of them are rigged with devillishly lethal traps.
Quentin (Maurice Dean Wint) is a cop, who quickly organizes the party. He is joined by Helen Holloway (Nicky Guadagni), who is a doctor; Joan Leaven (Nicole de Boer), a student with a ‘facility’ for mathematics; David Worth (David Hewlett), an office worker; and Rennes (Wayne Robson), who just happens to be an escape artist. They are later joined by the autistic Kazan (Andrew Miller).
As they ponder the how, why, and where of their situation they must find a way of escaping the cube and avoiding any number of grisly deaths.
Cube Summary
When watching the first ten minutes of Cube, the viewer could be forgiven for a negative first impression. Without the aid of any kind of background detail and environment to work with, it takes the viewer time to bed in with the script and cast, both of which may seem sub-par at the outset.
Of course, the character backgrounds are leaked through and well-worked into their roles, but it’s the accumulating information and investigation of the cube that ultimately draws the viewer in. The real beauty of this film is in the cube concept as, layer by layer, the mystery and workings of their prison is peeled back, with more questions waiting.
The cube’s existence is never fully explained and represents a nightmarish, bureaucratic system that is the result, not of someone’s knowledge, but of everyone’s ignorance. As Worth states in one scene:
“This may be hard for you to understand, but there’s no conspiracy. Nobody is in charge. It’s a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master plan. Can you grasp that? Big Brother is NOT watching you.”
While there may be certain improbable developments in the course of the film, it nonetheless remains a very smart, very original work with a strong sense of atmosphere. There are also twists aplenty, which are ingeniously plotted.
Cube Cast
Whatever the initial misgivings, the cast come through with their performances. Though Nicky Guadagni is at first far too overbearing, even she is laudable by the end of the film. Maurice Dean Wint is excellent as the cop-going-crazy, while Andrew Miller is more than praiseworthy in his difficult part as the autistic Kazan.
The two more measured roles given to David Hewlett and Nicole de Boer are especially well filled, with Hewlett bringing a needed everyman quality to the cast and a young de Boer is probably the most convincing and gifted actor of the film.
Cube Director Vincenzo Natali
In a production that only used one set (with different coloured, back-lit, gels used to change it’s appearance) Natali was aware that the repetition of rooms meant that measures needed to be taken to ensure the film didn’t stagnate. While there are minor deficiencies in some of the dialogue, the script is well-paced, funny, intelligent and wildly unpredictable.
Toying with the sound levels and introducing several unique views of the cube’s outer walls also serves as a break from the room-to-room routine (which, in any case, is never monotonous). Add to that the development of the characters and their understanding of the cube – on which so much of the film depends – and the story is never in danger of lagging, while always maintaining a crucial sense of claustrophobia and unknown threat.
There have since been two sequels, neither of them by Natali. These are recommended only to those who want to see more people fall prey to fiendish traps, but otherwise lack the many merits of the first film.
Whether on your own or with friends, Cube is vastly entertaining and gripping. Don’t miss it.
- Producer: Mehra Meh, Betty Orr
- Director: Vincenzo Natali
- Screenplay: André Bijelic, Graeme Manson, Vincenzo Natali
- Starring: Nicole de Boer, David Hewlett, Maurice Dean Wint, Nicky Guadagni, Andrew Miller
- Released: September 1997 (Canada) by Trimark Pictures
- Running Time: 90 mins
