The United Kingdom. Soon. Civil war rages. A woman wakes up in a blindingly white cuboid cell. Using its sophisticated functionality, her captor tortures her for information; information she claims not to have – or does she?

A woman (Shauna Macdonald) wakes up in the title area with no idea how she got there or what her captors want. As Shauna is the focus of the first half of the film and she is sharing screen time with a voice through an intercom, she does incredibly well displaying a wide range of emotion and situations. At the halfway mark, the movie completely uproots what you thought was going on. Soon discussions on the morality of war, willful ignorance, ends justifying the means and a few other heftier subjects are taking place. With the increased topics comes an increased cast as we then meet a freedom fighter (Oded Fehir), an assistant (Amrita Acharia) and a few others.

There weren’t any weak links in the cast, any shortcomings came down to script more than anything. In fact, the script seemed to be at odds with its self almost constantly. Characters would make choices and statements completely different than what they had said just moments earlier. One of the ongoing themes is there is no black and white in war, only gray. The examples used are so extreme (choosing to fight is the same as using suicide bombers to kill innocent people) and so numerous that it felt like there really weren’t any “good guys” but the movie decides to go back to who is right and who is wrong instead.

With a majority of the film taking place in said chamber, the actors do well with the limited locations. The special effects can range anywhere from okay to lower budget TV show, thankfully there are few scenes in the movie that require them. One thing I did notice and was pleased with was the use of color to convey basic information such as when it got cold, the environment would take on a cool blue hue and hot would the bath area in red light. I thought this was a neat visual queue that would have to be great for a show and not tell approach of storytelling but we, unfortunately, had characters explain exactly what was happening which continues the films trend of not committing to any one thing.

White Chamber sits in an odd spot, where it exists as one thing but is clearly marketed as another. I will say that while I did enjoy the film, I had to actually stop and double check that I wasn’t watching the wrong movie. The trailers I saw made this seem like it belonged in the same area as the underrated film Cube and the like. That is not what this is. As I said, this isn’t a bad film. It’s just not what I was expecting. This is a movie that has something to say and it tries hard to say it. The problem is that it can’t always decide on what that message is. So while it’s muddled when it comes to themes and pacing, the strong performances and engaging story makes it worth that watch.