"The Oak Room" (2020) leaves a lot of Space to fill in the Blanks 

The Canadian mystery crime thriller "The Oak Room" is a story about telling stories.  Be prepared for a play played out on screen.  Oh, and better bring along your own ideas to fill in the perplexing plot holes, because they're broader than the trunk of an aged Oak Tree. 

Director Cody Calahan does a competent job of generating a threatening undercurrent of dread and foreboding malice.  And while that's all well and good, as an audience we naturally expect to realize a reasonable ration of resolution.  

Clearly Calahan didn't see it this way.  

While I have no issue with, and predominantly prefer, a movie to inspire me to think, ya gotta give me something to work with.  We know what's gonna happen to the bartender in the end here.  What we're left to grapple with is what and why the hell most of what we've seen transpire up to that point happened.  Or even if it did. 

And thus, that tasks this particular promising filmmaker to branch out with loads of room for improvement.  Consider it constructive criticism, Code. 

Eh?

***I cordially invite you to buy my book, "Sliced Lives", a compelling and captivating collection of 27 original short stories.  

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