Why am I in a Box? Review-Written By Kelsey Zukowski

Starring: Rachel Grubb, Brooke Lemke, Derek Dirlam, Mike Rylander
Written & Directed by: Rachel Grubb
Grade: B

Why am I in a Box? centers around the struggle to create your inspirations and dreams in to a reality. After all, it’s a lot easier to get an idea or talk about a premise, but the real challenge is to actually create that work and make it a reality. Why am I in a Box? tackles this with an interesting mix of comedy and horror. The situation puts our protagonist to the test. Surely imprisonment and having one’s life threatened is enough incentive to write that work of art she has always dreamed of creating.

Ellen Farnsby (Grubb) lives with her somewhat dim boyfriend, Ted (Rylander). She often goes in to a local video store where she talks to the clerk, Jeremy (Dirlam). They talk about her novel writing aspiration and his moviemaking dreams. They are rudely interrupted by a nasty and impatient customer, Paige (Lemke). Unfortunately, this won’t be the last time that Ellen sees her. She wakes up one day, chained up in an empty white room. Paige comes in and tells her how things are going to go. Paige hasn’t had any luck getting a novel published on her own so she has kidnapped Ellen to do it for her. Ellen is only permitted Ramen noodles, since Paige thinks she should be in the state of a starving artist such as in her younger years as a broke college student. If Ellen finishes a novel to Paige’s satisfaction then she can leave and move on with her life. If Paige gets bored or dissatisfied then she’ll simply kill Ellen as she clearly would be useless to her.

As she is stuck in this room day after day with nothing else to do, Ellen begins to write. Unfortunately, Paige isn’t very pleased with her love story. Paige gives Ellen another chance though. To get real life experience to influence her writing, Ellen is let out to have a lunch date with Jeremy. Paige kidnaps one of the waitresses at the restaurant. Paige uses this to test Ellen and Jeremy’s interactions, jerking Ellen around as if she was her own puppet to manipulate as she wishes. Jeremy is a bit weirded out to say the least especially when she suddenly leaves without a word. When she gets back to the white boxed room, Ellen decides to go a different direction with her story. Gradually something comes to her. Paige criticizes her metaphors at first until Ellen explains that they aren’t metaphors at all; her character has miraculous supernatural abilities such as an affinity with the elements fire and water and the irreversible power of her dreams becoming reality when she wakes. Meanwhile, Ted thinks Jeremy murdered his girlfriend and is in a complete mess about it. Jeremy is taken in for questioning, but he ends up working with the detective to decipher the clues that Ellen’s real kidnapper has left them. If they can’t crack the code then even creating a masterpiece won’t save Ellen’s life.

The performances were very solid all around. Rachel Grubb does well as the somewhat hesitant, but imaginative survivalist, Ellen. She’s a likeable character, but what is even more interesting is the transition she goes through, powering the question of how far someone would go to attain all of their dreams. Brooke Lemke brought out the nasty and dominating, Paige. There was somewhat of an over the top element with her character, but it does make the character seem more crazy and controlling. Mike Rylander did a great job as Ted. He brought out the dumb and simple character overwhelmed with his life and his girlfriend’s disappearance. He played it well enough without seeming just like a dumb stereotype. Every minute he’s on screen he brings out the simple persona with genuine comedy throughout his absurdities. Derek Dirlam also does pretty well as the laid back and concerned store clerk, Jeremy. Heather Amos also brings out the character of his zany roommate.

The scenes where Ellen is locked in the white, empty room offer up a great visual. The emptiness of the overbearing white room creates a very foreign atmosphere. Once she begins writing, having the yellow pages of writing scattered about stand out as her story begins to gain life. It also works in that both Ellen and her novel are a blank slate, leaving it up to her the atmosphere she creates for both.

The interactions with Ellen and her own mystical character are interesting. Ellen is so desperate to get her character’s experiences and intentions right. The image of the creation of her character is dazzling, showing a sense of lighthearted charm at times while seeming tortured by not be able to control the power of her own dreams. Dreams becoming a reality, especially the nightmares, is a gripping theme. It creates a sense of helplessness and invasion on the causes and effects people are used to experiencing. The situation of imprisonment in order to do the things one always craved, but was too scared to do and the themes of testing ones limits and the otherwise nearly hopeless state of the wretched state of writer’s block. While employing intriguing subject matter and themes, the comedy is really rich, making Why am I in a Box? a thoroughly enjoyable film. The DVD also includes the shorts, Young Eyes and A Broken Family by Silent-But-Deadly Productions.