Using My Platform to Talk About Another

Today, I bring you another "from the depths of Netflix" review. This one has actually been on my radar for some time, ever since it sprang from nowhere onto the Top 10 Movies of 2020 list from critic Tasha Robinson. Finally, the moment seemed right, and I watched The Platform.

This movie is a dystopian thriller with a dash of science fiction. It's a Spanish film. (The original title is "El hoyo" -- The Hole.) It's set in a prison facility of an uncertain number of levels, each one a single room housing two prisoners. The only food delivered comes via a large stone platform that slowly descends through the levels. What begins on Level 1 as a lavish feast becomes a picked-over mess of leftovers, and ultimately a collection of empty plates.

The social commentary here is not subtle, nor new. In particular, Snowpiercer featured many of the same ideas about class structure that are centered here. Also not new is the idea of a science fiction movie in a repetitive, spartan setting. (There have been more Cube movies than I have managed to see.) And yet, as The Platform unfolds, it feels like something surprisingly original.

It certainly feels darker and nastier. The Platform is a visceral and harrowing story even before it becomes violent and cruel (which doesn't take long). There are very few characters, as you might expect, so much of why the movie works at all is thanks to the main actor, Iván Massagué. From what I can see online, he's actually known mainly as a comedic actor, making this a massive casting against type. But his performance as Goreng draws you in and makes the horrors of the situation feel more real.

I'll be blunt: the ending of the movie doesn't quite make sense -- it defies logic in ways that are hard to accept. And yet, at the same time, I sort of feel like it shouldn't be hard to accept them. If you've come 85 minutes, believing in the heightened premise this movie proposes, what you're asked to believe in the last 10 minutes probably isn't asking that much more. And it's not like the ending hasn't been earned through various seeds planted throughout the story. Still, it's tough to go out asking "how is that possible?" when suspension of disbelief has been so skillfully deployed before then.

Put simply, were it not for the ending, I probably also would have put The Platform on my Top 10 Movies of 2020 list (or 2019, if you go by the original Spanish release). And I'd still say it was more of a "hop on the landing" than a full face plant. I give The Platform a B+. It's not an easy watch, but if the concept sounds intriguing to you, I certainly recommend it.