Willem Dafoe Goes Solo in ‘Inside’

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With the precision of a commando raid, Nemo (Willem Dafoe) drops from a helicopter onto the terrace of a New York high rise. Armed with passcodes to the luxury penthouse, he sweeps through the capacious apartment, seeking specific artworks to steal. He’s in touch minute-to-minute with his handler, circling overhead in the copter.

But the operation’s Mission Impossible timing fumbles when Nemo can’t locate the costliest painting of the collection, worth $3 million. Nemo hits the activation code as he prepares to retreat to the hovering helicopter, but something goes wrong—steel doors slide shut, putting the condo in lock down, trapping him. “You’re on your own,” Nemo’s unseen handler says over the walkie. The signal fades to static.

Inside is a film about a man trapped like a rat in a maze, butting his body against barrier that won’t give way. Greek director Vasilis Katsoupis debuted Inside at the Berlin Film Festival last month before its March release in the U.S. theaters.

Seldom since Tom Hanks amused himself with Wilson the Volleyball in Cast Away has a lone actor held together a feature film with the strength shown by Dafoe. His character is a cypher; apparently an aspiring professional artist earlier in life, he remains inseparable from his sketch pad. No reason is given for his turn from artmaking to art theft. The taste of bitterness can be discerned; he is winded, like a man too old for the job gambling on one final payoff. 

But the only payoff might be escape. As the steel doors shut, a shrill alarm sounds along with a purring Siri voice repeating, “System Malfunction,” “System Malfunction” … Nemo disables the alarm, but panic continues to mount and cold sweat beads his neck. He is stuck inside a malfunctioning “smart” dwelling. The refrigerator door Siri offers recipe tips when opened and the freezer plays the vacuous ‘90s hit “Macarena” to maddening effect. By cutting the cord to disable the alarm, he also disabled the toilet (it won’t flush) and scrambled the cable TV signal. With nothing but a knife and a Boy Scout’s resourcefulness, Nemo tries to find a way out of a cage whose doors are digital as much as physical.

The condo’s mysterious owner (his face is displayed on several artworks) might be an oligarch from the former Soviet Union. There is passing reference to Kazakhstan and a painting consisting of a bright red Z; Nemo fills himself with caviar and vodka before turning to less savory refreshments as the days turn interminable. The dwelling is a modernist study in greys and hard surfaces, its high-ceilinged rooms dwarfing Nemo; the art is mostly postmodern contemporary, the expensive baubles of the One Percent. Nemo begins to draw his own pictures on the walls.

Inside’s screenplay by British novelist Ben Hopkins raises a few curious questions, beginning with that alarm—it alerted no one in that high-security high rise of an intruder at the top floor? Well, it was yet another failure of a “smart” system too complicated to work dependably? In many scenes Hopkins displays a gothic perversity worthy of a 21st century Edgar Allan Poe. The malfunctioning “smart” condo’s thermostat rises to 91, 95, topping 100 degrees, forcing Nemo to strip to his shorts and suck at the icy insides of the freezer (that damned tune blaring all the while!). And then, for no reason, the temperature plummets, forcing him to rummage in closets for winterwear. 

Nemo talks to himself, gives dramatic performances for no one (perhaps he was an actor?) and eyes the cute young cleaning woman visible from time to time on security cameras outside the door and stairwells—a sexual fantasy and the hope that she might hear his cries for help through the solid walls and doors. He dreams, he hallucinates, he loses track of time and of himself, makes a mess of that condo and leaves the audience wondering if the absent owner will ever return.

Inside is screening at the Marcus Majestic Cinema and the Oriental Theatre.