Review - The Platform



The Platform is one of the newest films out on Netflix and if the newly added Top 10 feature is anything to go by, a few of you may have already seen it. It's been on there since it came out, it's been getting good reviews, a bunch of people you know have probably told you to watch it once you finish Tiger King. Anyway, it's been pretty popular so I checked it out! One of the bits of credit you can immediately give the film is that it has an awesome premise. We follow a character in a vertical prison, where inmates are randomly allocated a new floor each month. We're not told how many floors there are but there's a hole in the middle of each floor that goes down to the bottom. From this hole descends... The Platform! This platform contains a bunch of food and prisoners are allowed to eat anything that remains after the people above them have feasted. On floor 1, you can feast. Floor 30, you're still in luck. Going down further, maybe to somewhere like 80 and who can say what will be left for you? It's a really fun premise that I'm sure intrigues you as much as it does me, but the problem is, that's as good as it gets. A premise this strange should pave the way for some really interesting cultural commentary but the most insightful it gets is "I can't shit upwards". Otherwise, it's a slow descent from an interesting setup into an aimless mess, before attempting to wrap it all up in a satisfying way. Attempting and, it must be said, failing.
The less actors have to do, the more they mess it up.
The performances of people in this film generally veers from the decent to the pretty bad, but let's start with the decent first, give the film some credit. I think the main two performers, the guys who play Goreng and Trimagasi, are pretty good. They have to carry a lot of the early parts of the film, just the two of them, delivering the heavy but needed exposition in a way that keeps you engaged. Eventually, more people turn up and I guess to give the film more credit, the more a person is in the film, the better an actor they are. There are probably four or five fairly central characters and they are all decent, but side characters and extras can be pretty awful sometimes. The weird thing is, these extras don't do much, but the things they're given to do are bad and stupid and delivered in ways that are bad and stupid. It's almost like the less they have to do, the more they mess it up, which makes absolutely no sense. Then again, they're all speaking Spanish, so maybe they're actually great performances and I have no idea what I'm talking about? Or maybe that's not the case.
How could it be trashy, it's foreign, like Parasite!
All of this could be redeemable if the film nailed the tone but again, it doesn't quite manage it. The start is a great setup, not quite nailing down a vibe but existing as a strange mix that works much better than it should. There's a dash of sci-fi, a hint of horror, all wrapped around a slightly Beckettian frame (essentially, it's a bit like Waiting for Godot or Endgame, plays written by Samuel Beckett, in which people are trapped in one location and just kinda talk). Plus, that concept is great for a first act, but starts to crumble as more answers are given, answers that were sometimes not really wanted. The problem with the tone too is that while those three tones are an interesting but shaky mix for half an hour, it cannot sustain a film for a further hour. I don't know, the whole time I was watching this film, I kept asking why it's been so popular and I think it comes down to three things. First, we all have a lot more time at the moment, so we're much more willing to take risks on content. Second, the premise is, as I have admitted, kind of irresistible, how could that not be great? Third, and this is maybe my most cynical take, I think the fact that this is a foreign language film (it's from Spain) has convinced people that this is a classier joint than it is. After all, how could it be trashy, it's foreign, like Parasite! I am free of that prejudice as the poor fool who sat through 5 Star Christmas, an Italian Netflix Original that stands as one of the worst films I've ever seen. The point is, some fun gore can't save a film that is clearly trash.

Perhaps it seems like I've been too harsh on The Platform. It isn't an awful film, I want to make that clear, but it is a bad film. Ironically, the film itself is like the titular platform. It starts off rich and fascinating but empties out sooner than you'd expect and is a husk by the time it reaches the bottom. I can't say I'd recommend it, so I give The Platform a


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