Just last week, when reviewing the chuckle-headed puzzle movie 12 Rounds, I made facetious reference do that old conundrum in which you have to transport a wolf, a sheep and a bag of grain across a river in one small boat. What do you know? That very riddle pops up in this genuinely fascinating, consistently gripping high-concept thriller from Spain.
The heroes of Fermat's Room, three mathematicians and an engineer, might enjoy calculating the likelihood of such a coincidence. They could use a normal distribution curve. It's just a thought.
An unlikely combination of Saw, And Then There Were None, Cube, Sleuthand The Open University, Fermat's Roombegins with the four main players receiving a numerical puzzle in the mail. If they solve the enigma, then they will be permitted to attend a secret gathering in the country. Being the sort of people who relish disentangling a mystery, they put their heads down and, some weeks later, find themselves rowing a boat named Pythagoras towards a moonlit retreat.
After hurried introductions, events turn decidedly peculiar. The boffins, now locked in a cosy, square room, receive a series of puzzles via a PDA. When they fail to solve a question in the allotted time the walls begin advancing towards one another. Only their huge brains stand between them and death by squashing.
The young writer/directors do stretch the viewer’s credulity somewhat. Anybody who has hung out with mathematicians will know that, unlike the heroes of this film, they rarely drive BMW sports cars or vintage Jaguars, and they almost never dress like Gael García Bernal’s more stylish brother.
Moreover, aware that the puzzles have to be comprehensible to a mainstream audience, the film-makers have tended towards the sort of conundrum you might encounter in a cracker rather than the sort that will win you the Fields Medal.
Never mind. The tension is built up with great skill, and the first- rate cast bicker and fret with admirable conviction. Besides which, any film whose denouement hinges on a possible proof for the Goldbach Conjecture deserves support. We duly award it Pi stars. (Corrected to one significant place above.)
Directed by Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopeña. Starring Alejo Sauras, Elena Ballesteros, Santi Millan, Lluis Homar, Federico Luppi Club, IFI, Dublin, 90 min
