CHATROOM

UK, 2010, 97 minutes, Colour.
Aaron Taylor- Johnson, Imogen Poots, Matthew Beard, Hannah Murray, Daniel Kaluuya, Megan Dodds, Tuppence Middleton, Ophelia Lovibond, Richard Madden.
Directed by Hideo Nakata.

As might be expected from the title, this is about online sharing. However, it is a cautionary tale, especially for adolescents who have problems in themselves and at home.

While the story is British, focused on London, the director is the Japanese UK Nakata, best known for his Japanese films including Ringu and the American Ring 2.

Aaron Taylor- Johnson is a disturbed young man who sets up the chat room, Chelsea Teens. He is seen at his computer but it may be that all the events are happening in his head. (There may be some parallel with the experiences of Jason Statham in Guy Ritchie’s Revolver.)

What is significant is that the chat room is visualised, realistically and symbolically, long corridor, doors into various rooms, locked and unlocked, rooms which are empty, with different coloured walls, which various groups can occupy and share in. Much of the action concerns the group of characters who meet in this room. Some of them have an influence on William but he wants power over them, especially a disturbed young man who is suicidal, William giving him advice, setting him up with a gun, trying to drive him to death.

The film culminates in the young man’s crisis at the Zoo, and the group pursuing William to a canal lock, and he goes his death on train line.

1. The title? Expectations? Internet? The experience of being online, sharing? The focus on adolescents?

2. London, real, imaginary, Camden Lock, the zoo? The musical score, a tonal?

3. The visuals of the chat room, the realistic look, their being symbolic? The corridors, the doors of the box, the rooms in the space, the colours, emptiness, the difference when people were present? Chelsea Teens?

4. The moral issues, the warning of dangers about the Internet and chat rooms, families and difficulties, angers and resentments, revenge? Psychological states? Suicide?

5. William at the centre, his personality, his players? Creating the chatroom, his own computer, the visuals of his rooms? His activities, himself and his mother, her skill as a writer, his angers? The encounters with Eva and her influence, with Mo, Emily? His particular focus on Jimmy?

6. The interactions, venturing into the room, to the different rooms, their experiences within the rooms? Alternatives? Different sidings with each other?

7. William, sabotaging the rival site?

8. Jim, his psychological condition, very private, William and his advice, urging him on, pushing him, abandoning him? The support of the others in the group?

9. Emily, her parents, her resentment, vandalising their property?

10. Mo, the sexual issue, his attraction to the young girl, this being dramatised, his telling his good friend, the punch-up? The intimacy of these experiences and the consequences for Mo, for the girl?

11. Eva, model, wealthy, her reason for joining the group? Realising the truth?

12. At the zoo, gun, his being urged to suicide? The pursuit by the other members of the group?

13. Chase two the Camden Lock, the police, William’s last stand, falling onto the trainline, his death?

14. A London story, the Japanese perspective of the director and his career with horror films?