Review of The Platform (2019) by Yishay — 13 Nov 2020

Focusing first on the message of the movie, I think it fails at drawing parallels to real life in multiple ways. The most glairing flaw is it portrays wealth/food as something that inevitably descends from above in fixed quantities, which does not align with life. Additionally putting people in random cells from which they have no ability to move between also weakens the allegory. The final nail in the coffin is that, when it is stated their is enough food for everyone to have a little, that was under the assumption there were only 200 floors, when in fact their was far more. It's arguable of course that maybe there could still be enough if perfectly proportioned, but it seems like an oversight to me. The ending was also quite lazy, assuming the message was essentially hoping the next generation somehow overcomes human nature.

In a literal sense the movie is confused and unsatisfying, always putting the message over substance and coherence. The plot serves only to service the confused allegory, and thus it suffers from the same gaping holes and incompleteness. The "open" ending of the movie leaves little to speculate on, ruining the point of such a thing, as I can scarcely deduce the true nature of the place or the people running it, with only one real hints coming from someone who was consistently giving wrong information. There are many smaller unanswered questions for which their is little reason to leave them unanswered, unless it is to avoid reveling more contradictions. The biblical references felt lazy, uninspired, and barely linked to the rest of the movie. The setting is an interesting concept, but being filmed almost completely within what is essentially the same very boring room was unfortunate, Though it did add to selling how dull such a place would be.

There are some redeeming features however: -Good acting, and an only slightly over use of gore to sell the horror, desperation and brutality of the lower levels. -Good unique premise, though some more thought could have made it a great one.

-Seemed well enough paced most of the time.

-sci-fi elements keep you on your toes, though not much ever comes from it other than making the setting possible.

All said it is not a terrible movie, but it undermines allot of what it has going for it to preach an unoriginal and poorly thought out message. Give it a go if you are bored, but don't feel like you have to spend too much time thinking about it, as it isn't as deep as it looks at first glance.