La cellule de Fermat

Fermat's Room is a welcome Spanish thriller that takes the tried and true Saw/Cube formula and adds some actual intrigue and a little bit of wit to the proceedings. With a slow and steady build to an ending that ties everything up in a rather satisfying way, you'll be asking yourself "why can't most thrillers make this much sense?" Fermat's Room is not original but it puts an interesting and well-written spin on tired plot points and movie gimmicks. Directors Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopena have a good sense of space and depth when it comes to shooting in the room itself and the tension and pacing will have you staring at the screen with anticipation. Do yourself a favor and check out Fermat's Room; it just might cleanse your palette of all the junk films floating out there lately.

It was a good idea for a movie.

The start was interesting and promising, but problems they were solving are either too easy, and you can find them everywhere, or they didn't explain how they get the result.

Also, there's a lack of interest from participants to solve problems, even when they figure it out that their lives depend from it. They spend more time, dealing with their personal problems, which were not good explain, and not seem so important for the story.

My rate is 7/10, just because I would be sorry to give 6/10 to idea like this. 1h29min was too short for a movie like this, and if they made material for half an hour more, maybe the story and interpretation would be much better, and my rate would go to 8/10 for sure.

Neighter the story deepens as expected; thus the mysteries of the movie fails to raise tension, nor the narration presents a satisfying visual attraction. Good idea, sufficient prologue and unsatisfactory final.

Gets off to a great start.... BUT...........

FIRST... Let us FOCUS on the Title´s Content and Context:

Fermat's Room is a Psychological Mystery/Thriller offering from Spain that gets off to a very sure-footed start and seemed to hold out the promise of a very fast-paced and taut film!

The storyline itself is entertaining enough, but the characters never really flagged my interest. Basically, the chemistry was lacking!

FERMAT certainly did have its moments.... but fell considerably short of its potential. It really grabbed me from the opening credits, although hours later a little cerebral ricocheting had me recalling other films that had similar opening credit scenes. Unfortunately, no titles come to mind. If you watch it, let me know if your memory serves you better than mine!

Its not often you see a film that is both Co-Directed AND Co-Written by 2 young men (both 30 at the time) from different small towns in Spain. Luis Piedrahita, who gets top-billing both as Co-Director and Co-Writer, is a real Renaissance man. IMDb lists him as a Writer, Director, Actor, Comedian and award-winning Magician....of all things!

Ah, and therein lies the rub! Like its #1 Co-Director, FERMAT is just TOO busy, trying to pack in too much, too quickly, in its 85 minutes! At times, it wants to go in 5 different directions all at once!

To save themselves, four Math prodigies are forced to solve a slew of math problems/riddles. Another reviewer mentioned the problems shift gradually from left(logic) to right (intuitive) brain function...Yes, that's right, but I didn't really get it during the film...and I am still in higher Math overload! Of course, when it comes to Math, I make Forrest Gump look like Stephen Hawkings!

FERMAT needed another 20 minutes for more character development and to re-work its pace so that viewers could better absorb more of what's going on without feeling so stressed and lost. I liked the name of the boat. Did you catch it?... Pythagaros! BARELY LIMPS in at 6******.....ENJOY! / DISFRUTELA!

Any comments, questions or observations, in English o en Español, are most welcome!

Unfortunately Fermat's Room adds nothing new to the idea of trapping a group of people in a single room and having them slowly piece together how they know one another. The general premise of course sounds interesting (at least to me) a shrinking room and four mathematicians must solve their way out. But the problem begins right there, they are only given one minute per question, which makes it damn near impossible for the audience to keep up. Not to mention when they begin to work out the problems on the chalkboard, the camera hardly ever puts it in frame, which would have been great for the audience to kind of sole the problem along with the characters.

But instead the movie shifts focus away from the riddles/enigmas and focuses on them trying to figure out who has put them there and why. This is where Fermat's Room becomes derivative and generic, this is very familiar territory for this type of movie and it is spun in an unengaging way. I personally would have enjoyed focuses more on the enigmas and trying to include the audience more (possibly by giving the characters more time to solve them).

And the unfortunate aspect of the movie is the Spanish subtitles, they were very fast moving which didn't help things (Just something that was unavoidable sadly). Like when the characters are dissecting the enigmas, the lines of dialogue moved too quickly to follow along with how they were solving the problem.

But when all is said and done, Fermat's Room is an interesting, little thriller that has just enough distinction from other films in the genre to make it worth mentioning.