Oxygen

🧠 Synopsis: Life in a Box

Oxygen starts with a black screen. A woman (Mélanie Laurent) awakens in a medical cryo-unit, a high-tech capsule. Laurent’s character, now a woman with amnesia, is trapped inside a machine that operates like a capsule in some distant future. Oxygen warns her that the AI system, MILØ, gently voiced by Mathieu Amalric, informs her that the available oxygen is running out.

Elizabeth Hansen has only 35% oxygen left to solve the mystery behind her identity and the machine’s mystery.

The pod’s interface reveals some more clues. With rising panic and the urge to escape, Elizabeth starts recalling pieces of her life. She “recalls” being a geneticist, however, as she soon learns, reality is a different story, and clues puzzles can hint but never give certitude.

The story kicks off as an atmospheric survival thriller, exposition of a new world filled with technological wonders and ethical dilemmas like cryogenics and interstellar colonization.

👤 Cast & Character Breakdown

Elizabeth Hansen (Mélanie Laurent)

As the sole performer for almost the entire runtime, Laurent captures each emotion, including confusion, terror, frustration, determination, and transcendence. The journey of Elizabeth emotionally shifting from helplessness to self-heroism is interesting and profoundly human.

MILØ (Mathieu Amalric, voice)

Becomes an intriguing character as the story progresses, though starting as a cold-helper AI system. MILØ’s calm, clinical demeanor, devoid of empathy, clasps a lifeline while embodying the very essence of logic devoid of humanity. The cold yet haunting quality of Amalric’s voice performance accentuates the character’s clinical AI nature.

Malik Zidi as Léo Ferguson

As a fragmented voice and memory, Léo aids in revealing Elizabeth’s true purpose while appearing as a mysterious character from her past (or present). His presence serves multiple roles and can be described as a memory trigger and an emotional anchor.

🎭 Themes and Symbolism

Identity and Isolation

Foundation of Oxygen revolves around identity lost and reclaimed, a story encapsulated in the character Elizabeth’s amnesia. On a greater scale, it reflects humanity’s never-ending existential inquiries: Who are we when we are stripped from everything external?

Time as an Enemy

With the oxygen depleting in real-time, the story gains unyielding tension alongside a constant reminder of mortality. Elizabeth physically deteriorates while mentally racing against suffocating time which becomes a merciless antagonist.

The Ethics of Science and Survival

This film examines space colonization, genetic manipulation, and cloning. What is the extent that humanity should go to ensure survival? Is identity maintained in a clone? Does memory define an individual’s selfhood?

AI and Humanity

MILØ represents cold rationalism. Its decisions are made based on efficiency, not compassion. The film’s focus on Elizabeth’s emotional struggles and MILØ’s contrasting robotic reasoning creates tension, emphasizing the film’s commentary on our reliance on technology.

🧬 Twist and Revelation (Spoiler Warning)

Halfway through the film, a shocking reveal shows the audience that Elizabeth is not on Earth. Instead, she is on a deep space ship and one of the many cryogenic clones sent to colonize an exoplanet after Earth became uninhabitable.

The real Dr. Hansen—her original self—may have died or is back on Earth. The Elizabeth we see is a clone, infused with her creator’s memories and identity. Due to a malfunctioning pod, she suffers awakens too early which jeopardizes the entire mission.

This revelation transforms the narrative from a survival drama into a philosophical sci-fi puzzle. The question is no longer just Will she live?, but What is a life worth saving if it is not even your own—at least in origin?

🎥 Direction and Cinematic Style

Alexandre Aja, best known for horror and thrillers (High Tension, Crawl, The Hills Have Eyes), applies his horror instincts to sci-fi here, turning a single confined location into a place of mounting dread. His use of extreme close-ups coupled with disorienting angles and minimalist lighting serves to trap the audience in the pod alongside Elizabeth.

Despite the film’s one location limitation, Oxygen does not feel static. Through digital overlays, memory sequences, holographic interfaces, and swirling sound design, Oxygen is visually dynamic and emotionally electrifying until the final frame.

🎶 Sound and Score

Robin Coudert’s (Rob) score contributes to the atmospheric suspense. Droning tones, sharp pulses, and subtle shifts in rhythm increase the psychological stakes, resembling the sound of a racing heart or a collapsing breath. Sound becomes a character, exemplified through oxygen hissing, alarms beeping, voices glitching—all underscoring Elizabeth’s descent into revelation.

🏆 Reception and Critical Response

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%
Metacritic score: 66/100

Rotten Tomatoes praised Oxygen for Mélanie Laurent’s acting skills, the script, and the film’s sense of claustrophobia, giving it a notoriety for having a unique level of tension. While some critics did acknowledge the movie’s strength, they pointed to tropes commonly found in the genre as weaknesses, along with overly-detailed exposition in dialogue.

Audiences who appreciated films like Gravity, Buried, or Moon found Oxygen equally gripping. Its philosophical angle and feminist narrative center also won praise in many international reviews.

✅ Final Verdict

Oxygen is a taut cerebral sci fi thriller that explores identity, mortality, and humanity in a world overtaken by machines and genetic engineering, all with minimal resources—one actor, a single set, and an existential ticking clock. It does make use of a masterful performance by Mélanie Laurent.

The film poses difficult questions about memory, choice, and sacrifice—all while maintaining a focus on its central theme of survival. For lovers of philosophical thrillers with confined locations, Oxygen is an essential film.