Chatroom (2010)

I'm absolutely floored by all of the negative reviews this movie has gotten. Chatroom is one of the most amazing films I've ever seen. I can see the point of the film has gone over the heads of nearly everyone who has reviewed this so far, and I'd like to set the record straight: Chatroom is fantastic.Although the characterization of almost all the supporting characters is weak, William is intriguing and of a character quality I, as a writer, aim to construct. He makes your skin crawl with the terrible things he masterminds, yet you can't help feeling drawn to him. You want to help him and you want to know more about him. You know that, logically, you should despise him, but there is a part of you that doesn't.The symbolism in Chatroom is incredible. As William's true identity is revealed throughout the course of the movie, the lighting changes as well as his appearance. By the end of the film, the scenes have a blue tint to them. William's hair, which is gelled smooth and flat when he introduces himself to Chelsea Teens!, is curly, messy, and unkempt by the time he meets the kids in real life. Obviously, these, among many more slight metaphors littered throughout the film, were completely glazed over by critics. These enhance the movie and tinker with your mind.If anything, stick around for the adrenaline rush that hits you in the last 15 minutes of the film. Do not listen to these nay-sayers, as there is so much more to Chatroom than clichés. It is truly an amazing film, and I will stand by that opinion until the day I die.

One person can have a lot of influence on others. You usually don't believe when people say it, because c'mon – it's just one person and not even an adult, but a teenager! What the hell can he do?? Apparently, a lot.I guess it has to be fair to say, that I have never ever participated in any of the chatrooms. Yes, maybe it is weird to say that for a 20th century person, buuuut… I always was different. Or weird. Call it how you want it. But I am not the subject I wanted to talk about today.We all have problems. Just a few people are living happily without any concerns and those people are not the main characters of this movie. Movie starts of how William creates a chatroom for Chelsea teens (with an exclamation mark!) where they can discuss whatever they want. That ends up discussing about what they hate. And William decides to help these poor teens with their problems. Sounds nice, doesn't it? Well, it would if William didn't have his own motive – to actually sabotage their lives. He wants to be in control, that is why in the beginning he is shown making dolls (like a junior puppeteer). Maybe it's because his parents want to be in control of his life.Well I can't say I particularly liked this movie, but it does show that all of us have different views of life and we want different things in life. Of course, sometimes psychopaths appear and ruin the beautiful picture. Maybe this movie was just created for the message of "Be careful kids, on the Internet". It could be shown in class. But for me, it was a good way of showing how one person can work through others psychology and make them do things they never thought they would.

The main thing this film does to play with the the role of a chatroom is of course to play out the online conversation in a kind of etch a sketch hotel that the users decorate at will to reflect their personalities and so forth; this is done well, I thought. it filled in the removal of personal contact and body language, for the viewer's sake, and also provided an insight into the tone of each user's thoughts as they got to know each other and then William's plot unfolded. I thought the content and delivery of the dialogue of the online conversations as acted out in the hotel were actually quite reminiscent of the kind of language used in chatrooms, at least from my own experience; The film struck a chord with me because i spent a few years on chatrooms myself as a teenager; I was lucky, in that I avoided any real contact with weird people, or indeed malevolent entities such as William, and eventually met quite a few of the people i got to know well in real life, and struck up some great friendships, many of which continue to this day. however, i only met and talked to people in chatrooms because i had low self-esteem and was depressed and unsure of myself, the anonymity and control provided by a chatroom appealing to me more then less removed and more traditional forms of socialising; i'm sure a lot of people who use chatrooms have such issues and plenty more besides, which were represented by the film's characters; William and Jim were extreme examples, and the fraught, hysterical plot of William's to drive Jim to suicide culminating in that chase through Camden market seemed a little over the top to me. i did appreciate the way that each character's own personal plot and life was almost entirely mutually exclusive to the central plot of their friendship and interaction in the Chelsea teens room, Eva's room etc. a person's online persona, particularly in a chatroom, is a contrived and carefully constructed thing, and it's a very distanced, protective form of interaction, however personal you may get, as the characters did in the film, to devastating effect. I thought the film's disjointed pace and seemingly inconsequential progression, in the first half at least, was a good portrayal of that compartmentalisation of online chat and personal life.in addition to the bedrock of the main plot that emerges, the tragic lonely depressive characters who self-harm and/or seek solace online, meeting with people who display a variety of different responses from supportive to manipulative and cruel, we're also presented with a cross-section of sexual deviance, from the tolerable and acceptable - a hallway Eva walks through to meet William which is filled with people indulging in fetish, and mo talking to that older lady while other people talk dirty in neighbouring rooms - to the disgusting and unacceptable - mo's paedophilic interest in his mate's 11 year old sister, and the pervert whose entry to Chelsea teens prompts William to set up a password.along with the girl who Jim meets early on and from whom he runs away, using the above, the film seeks to establish the consensus that the world of chatrooms is a forum for the disaffected, deviant and personality-disordered to convene, and of course provides a warning about the dangers of such conference by presenting a group of characters so misguided and/or malevolent that their initially beneficial, well-intended, supportive online friendship leads to a life-or-death situation, which yields one casualty, fortunately not the painfully depressive Jim.all in all, i was impressed by this film, which i consider a worthy, well-made, convincingly acted portrait of the world of chatrooms, the freedoms, connections, pitfalls and traps that can result from such interactions and friendships, and ultimately, the value of real social structure, especially for those who aren't entirely comfortable with it and are driven to seek less direct ways of establishing it. i give the film 8/10

Yes you can pick holes at this film until teatime and everybody assumes it is because the actors, director, and writers were not up to it, but I would like to put forward another theory.As with most British films (exceptions being Messrs Loach & Leigh) an audience has to be established before it will be backed. I'm afraid the days of just making a fine film and hoping people will appreciate it are long gone. In the case of this film they chose a young audience and that is the reason for most of the frustrating shortcomings. They figure, I guess with some reason that the film had to be dynamic, action packed and with not too much dialogue to prevent the little scamps getting bored and twittering their friends to tell everybody what a boring movie they were watching.Unfortunately with a film focusing on people chatting online this was always going to be a struggle. Turning the virtual world into a physical location was a nice idea, but it was overused and over expanded. I also agree with all of the other reviewers claiming the relationships weren't sufficiently developed and that too quickly the lead character had the others eating out of his hand, but as already mentioned this was not due to a lack of talent but a conscious choice to make the movie this way. I am sure the writers and the director were more than capable of doing this and if you look at the deleted scenes on the DVD a lot of good stuff is there doing the job.But alas no, we had to have that unnecessary climax and all those visual corridor scenes which did nothing for the narrative. An interesting comparison is with the film: 'Social Network', which is full of rapid quick fire dialogue and scenes cutting quickly between locations and times zones and you have to concentrate consistently to understand what is going on. Something the film makers of this film don't think young people are capable of. To my knowledge this film was popular with all age groups, but yes your right this film was about Facebook, an entity most young people have a stake in, but couldn't that be also said of chatrooms? In short the producers misunderstood their subject matter and their audience and in doing so have missed an opportunity to make a great film and have instead created another forgettable British flop. Shame.