Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
A woman wakes in a cryogenic chamber with no recollection of how she got there, and must find a way out before running out of air.
Oxygen is a tight, single-location French thriller that rests almost entirely on Mélanie Laurent's shoulders — and she delivers a genuinely impressive performance carrying the film alone in a confined pod. The plot is competently constructed and keeps tension going, though the twist ending feels somewhat telegraphed and borrows from familiar sci-fi amnesia conceits. The cinematography is functional and claustrophobic by necessity but lacks distinctive visual flair beyond the constraints of the premise. The film is reasonably fresh in its execution — a French-language Netflix sci-fi survival thriller — but it echoes films like Buried and Passengers enough to limit its novelty. The ending provides resolution but underwhelms given the buildup, landing as adequate rather than memorable.