Chatroom

Chatroom is a disturbing film about a young man named Will (Aaron Johnson from Kickass) who sets up a chat room called "Chelsea Teens!". Four other teenagers join this site and soon they begin exchanging information as though they where life long friends. The chat room is brilliantly shown in physical form and the "friends" effortlessly jump from real life to the chat room which is portrayed as a sleazy run down hotel where all chatrooms are represented by different rooms.

The film is stylishly shot and hats off to director Hideo Nakata for doing something bold and different. The film is most certainly not one to let the younger teens sneak into as they may be drawn by the young skilled cast; the film is a visceral work and will play with your mind. The main topic here is isolation, all these kids have problems and the forlorn Will manipulates them via the chat room. He gets into their heads and influences their lives with devastating effects.

All in all this is a good film, very well shot and well acted Imogen Poots who plays Eva in the film is simply divine and a name we will hear a lot more about.Go into this film knowing as little as possible about it and have an open mind it will pull at the strings in your head and it unearths a dark world that is out there.

Five troubled teenagers connect to the chatrooom "Chelsea Teens!" in Internet to meet each other and talk in a self-help group. When the depressive Jim decides to commit suicide, the destructive sociopath William lures and pushes him to the edge to force him to kill himself.

The storyline of "Chatroom" is intriguing since the author uses a physical room to depict the conversations of the teens as if they were happening in the real world.

Unfortunately this promising and interesting concept is the only good thing in this boring and shallow film. The execution with several subplots keeps going back and forth from Internet to the real world but they are unattractive and maybe indicated for teens. In the end, I was no longer paying attention to this annoying flick. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Chat - A Sala Negra" ("Chat - The Black Room")

Note: On 04 July 2023, I saw this film again, aware of the plot and of the dangers of social media (I do not have any social media, only a blog). This time, I found "Chatroom" better and better. My conclusion is that this film deserves to be seen at least twice. My vote is seven.

The concept of Chatroom is a really good idea: five teenagers join an online chatroom and the film portrays their conversations as if they are happening in the real world, in a physical room. I can see, with quite a bit of rewriting, this working as a very engaging stage adaption. However, this film doesn't deliver on the goods. If I could make some decisions here I would have kept the entire film surrealistic, keeping every scene in the virtual world instead of flashing back and forth from the online fantasy into the real world where the kids are typing into their laptops or phones. That would have taken quite a bit of more talent to write, however, as we'd have to stay engaged with a conversation in a My Dinner With Andre sort of way. Also, two of the characters are extremely neglected and their subplots are never carried through to fruition. I also have a hard time believing, even in the virtual world of the internet, that the villain here could actually manipulate everyone so easily without anyone really objecting. It would have been in that objection, in the passion of that debate, that this movie could have found its true energy. But unfortunately it relies too heavily on every parent's paranoid nightmare of the internet leading to suicide or a sexual predator. There are some novel ideas here but unfortunately this film does not realize the potential of those ideas.

One of the best aspects of this movie (which is NOT, as it has been marketed, a horror movie) is the depiction of the internet into a physical space. It is really, really well done, and anyone (even slightly) familiar with the world of chatrooms will be blown away by the realism.

The movie goes back and forth between "real life" (the outside world) and internet life (the conversations and chats of the protagonists, here represented into a physical reality, so as not to spend an hour and 46 minutes filming youth typing on a keyboard).

It is not a horror movie, but rather a good psychological thriller, with the story of a disturbed teen who tries to alleviate his own misery by making others miserable. It is also a good look into the seedier, sleazier parts of the internet, where anything can happen, and where violence (although entirely psychological) can be very, very real.

I didn't really know what to expect with this film. There wasn't much media hype or anything of such so I thought I'd give it a go anyway.

I was a bit unsure of how the storyline was going to set out. The general pace of the film was quite set out as I didn't feel as if there were any parts that tend to have dragged on.

The character development was good, however, some characters such as Emily could have had a bit more involvement during.

Some of the acting was a bit tinny at times, especially at the start but it seemed to ease off as the story became more involved.

The ending was a slight shock and did in fact have me on the edge of my seat which I was incredibly surprised at!

The creepiness of Aaron Johnson's character William was what did it for me. I think he played it pretty well.

Overall, if you're looking for a film which incorporates some modern day technology and a bit of a nut job, this one is for you!