Welcome to the Chamber of Regret
If you’ve ever wondered what it would feel like to be locked in an empty IKEA showroom with the thermostat set to “hell,” congratulations—you’ve basically experienced White Chamber. This 2018 British sci-fi “horror” film (quotation marks earned) is what happens when you mix dystopian politics, pseudo-intellectual torture porn, and a paint sample catalog titled “Off-White Sadness.”
Written and directed by Paul Raschid, White Chamber starts off with a great concept: a woman wakes up in a mysterious futuristic chamber, and unseen forces subject her to extreme physical and psychological torture to extract information. It sounds sleek, terrifying, and cerebral—a cross between Cube, Saw, and Black Mirror. Unfortunately, what we get feels more like a community theater version of 1984, performed inside a refrigerator.
The Plot (or, What Plot?)
Dr. Elle Chrysler (Shauna Macdonald) wakes up in what looks like an Apple Store designed by sociopaths. She’s trapped in a white, featureless cube—hence the title, in case you thought this was about a fancy lab for toothpaste testing.
A disembodied male voice starts interrogating her, alternating between turning the temperature to lava and blasting arctic wind at her. It’s a clever setup for about ten minutes. Then the movie remembers it has to be 90 minutes long and starts flailing like a contestant on Bake Off who forgot to turn on the oven.
Elle insists she doesn’t know what the interrogator wants. He insists she does. We insist on knowing when something interesting will happen. Eventually, we learn there’s been a civil war in the UK—because of course there has—and the country is split between a fascist government and rebel forces. The titular white chamber is a government torture device used to “re-educate” prisoners. Because nothing says totalitarian dystopia like torturing people in a room that looks like a Samsung ad.
Then the film pulls a twist: surprise! Elle wasn’t the victim after all—she’s the torturer. That’s right, she used to run the white chamber for the government. The guy behind the mic, Narek (Oded Fehr), is a rebel leader she previously imprisoned. He’s now in control, flipping the torture table, metaphorically speaking.
It’s a juicy twist—on paper. But in practice, it feels like a half-baked power swap between two people you’ve already stopped caring about. It’s like watching someone swap chairs in a dentist’s office and pretending it’s a revolution.
White Room, Blank Story
The film wants to be profound. It really does. You can practically hear it whispering, “I’m saying something about humanity, power, and moral decay.” But the only thing decaying here is your attention span.
Instead of exploring the psychology of its premise, White Chamber settles for shouting its themes through exposition and shouting its dialogue through walls. We never learn enough about the war to care, nor do we understand why anyone is doing anything.
It’s as if the script was written by an AI trained on dystopian buzzwords: “totalitarian regime,” “ethical collapse,” “the resistance,”—all plugged into a blender and pureed until smooth and flavorless.
By the time the film tries to make us sympathize with Elle’s tragic backstory, it’s too late. She’s spent most of the runtime alternately screaming, sweating, and arguing with a wall. The emotional depth is somewhere between “dry toast” and “YouTube unboxing video.”
Shauna Macdonald: Acting Her Way Out of a Corner (Literally)
To her immense credit, Shauna Macdonald gives this movie more than it deserves. Trapped in a single location for most of the film, she throws herself into the performance like she’s auditioning for a better movie—which, to be fair, she probably was.
Macdonald screams, sobs, and monologues with an intensity that occasionally tricks you into thinking something important is happening. She sweats so convincingly that you can almost feel the heat radiating through your TV screen (or maybe that’s just your frustration).
Her Scottish BAFTA for Best Actress? Well-earned. Not because the movie’s great, but because she somehow carries it on her back like Sisyphus rolling a minimalist art installation up a hill.
Oded Fehr, meanwhile, delivers his lines with the smooth menace of a Bond villain doing a TED Talk. He’s charismatic, sure—but even he seems vaguely embarrassed by the script, as if wondering how he ended up interrogating someone in what looks like a sterilized bathroom.
Production Design: A Whole Lot of White, and That’s It
If White Chamber had an award for “Most Monotonous Set Design,” it would sweep the category. The chamber itself is impressively sterile—a big, gleaming box with shifting lights and the emotional warmth of a tax audit.
For about five minutes, this works. Then the novelty fades, and you realize you’re staring at the same four walls for the next hour and a half. Even Cube knew to throw in some color filters. Here, the visual monotony becomes symbolic—not of dystopia, but of the audience’s slow mental breakdown.
The lighting changes from bright white to red to blue, which the director clearly thought would communicate mood shifts. In reality, it just feels like the chamber’s been sponsored by Philips Hue.
The “Politics”: Deep as a Puddle, Loud as a Fire Alarm
The movie wants to comment on the dangers of authoritarianism, the moral gray areas of war, and the dehumanizing nature of technology. But rather than exploring these ideas, it just gestures vaguely at them like a student padding out an essay with big words and no thesis.
“Who is the real monster?” the movie asks. Spoiler: it’s still the people torturing each other in a box.
By the end, you’re left wondering whether White Chamber is an allegory for state cruelty or just a metaphor for watching Netflix too long in one sitting. Either way, it’s not great for your mental health.
The Dialogue: Written by a Robot Who’s Read Orwell Once
The script sounds like it was dictated by someone who fell asleep halfway through 1984. Characters deliver lines like “Truth is just propaganda in disguise” and “Pain reveals the soul” with total sincerity, as if they’re expecting applause.
Every conversation is either an exposition dump or a moral debate that goes nowhere. You could cut 30 minutes from this movie and lose absolutely nothing except the desire to gouge your eyes out from boredom.
The Ending: A Fizzle in a Blizzard
Without spoiling too much (though honestly, there’s not much to spoil), the movie ends the only way it can—vaguely and depressingly. There’s an explosion, some moral ambiguity, and a final shot that’s supposed to make you reflect on the cyclical nature of power. Instead, you’ll be reflecting on how your popcorn got cold during all the monologuing.
It’s the cinematic equivalent of someone saying, “We live in a society,” and then walking offstage expecting a standing ovation.
Final Verdict: A Chamber of Missed Opportunities
White Chamber could have been a sleek, claustrophobic sci-fi thriller—a modern-day Twilight Zone episode about control and complicity. Instead, it’s a sterile slog that mistakes shouting for tension and blank walls for atmosphere.
Shauna Macdonald delivers a powerhouse performance that deserves to be studied in acting schools titled “How to Survive a Terrible Script.” Oded Fehr brings his trademark gravitas, but even he can’t save the film from drowning in its own self-importance.
At the end of the day, White Chamber is a film that’s less about what’s inside the chamber and more about how desperately you want to escape it.
Final Score: 1.5 out of 5 Flickering Fluorescent Lights
Watch it if you’re a fan of minimalist torture, philosophical rambling, or just want to feel better about your own home décor. Otherwise, skip the chamber—because the real torture is sitting through it.
