REVIEW - ROOM 237

This documentary, which relates a great amount of theories into hidden subtexts within Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, and in great detail, is almost thoroughly reliant on the strength, believability and validity of these theories. There are so many, some of which have been researched most rigorously, some of which seem more like hopeful whims, wishful thinking. Some seem integral to Kubrick's take on Stephen King's story, and either support or are supported by known information regarding both the content of The Shining, and of its production, some seem perfunctory. Some are comically profane, some are intellectual. Some are elements of larger theories (the Apollo 11 real or fake debate is resurrected yet again). Some depend upon analysing Kubrick as a person, not just as a filmmaker, some are revealed to be probably meaningless quirks. The question, in the end is whether or not any of this has meaning. Each person who watches Room 237 may give credence to a different combination of these theories - there is an argument to be made for all being fake, and just the usual over-analysis of Kubrick obsessives, and an argument to be made for all being true. What was certain to me was that those theories which are more probably real were intended, by Kubrick, to form pieces of an intriguing, socially and historically rich puzzle that cannot be solved, full of sly red herrings, silly little pointers to contextual cul-de-sacs. And then there is an argument that this whole thing is merely a hoax. But even as a hoax, Room 237 is a well-edited, well-researched and (fitfully) entertaining hoax. However you consider it, though, some of the theories are more likely to provoke laughter than lasting interest (it helps keep the tone light, I suppose), and some which initially threaten to go nowhere, eventually do go nowhere, and take an awful long time getting nowhere too. They ought to have been excised. This would have made a sensational short film.