Gaia Weiss’s soulful heroine seeks a way out of a labyrinth in Mathieu Turi’s tense but formulaic thriller full of fiendish traps
Ventilation industry professionals, claustrophiliacs and anyone who appreciated the obligatory crawling-through-service-ducts scene in 80s action films such as
aliens and Die Hard will be well chuffed by this confined sci-fi puzzle thriller, presumably released to sanction the return of the word “fiendish” in reviews. That word made more than the odd appearance in writeups of Vincenzo Natali’s 1997 film Cube – to which Meander, set almost entirely inside a series of shoulder-width vents filled with fiendish traps, bears more than a faint resemblance.
There’s the briefest of preambles as woolly hatted Lisa (Gaia Weiss), lying on a wintry track with suicidal intentions, is picked up by gravel-voiced driver Adam (Peter Franzén). Their chat is turning existential when she realises, by the tattoo on his hand, that he is the escaped murderer the radio is talking about – and he attacks. Lisa wakes, to her disbelief, inside a small industrial space with perforated walls, and the only route out seems to be through a hatch giving on to the tightest of corridors. Of course, several feet farther down, the roof begins to close in.