’Oxygen’: Mélanie Laurent and Alexandre Aja Break Down Their Netflix Surivival Thriller

From High Tension to Crawl, Alexandre Aja is known for crafting pulse-pounding survival movies, but his latest, the Netflix thriller Oxygen, the filmmaker leaves behind bloody set-pieces and deadly predators in favor of a contained sci-fi approach. Mélanie Laurent stars as a young woman who wakes up trapped in a high-tech medical pod with no memory of who she is and discovers she’s rapidly running out of oxygen. With only her wits and an A.I. system named . (Mathieu Almaric), Laurent’s character has to puzzle out who she is, how she wound up in the pod, and most importantly, how she can get out alive. With Oxygen now streaming on Netflix, I recently had the opportunity to speak with Aja and Laurent about the film, from how they pulled off the production amidst the COVID pandemic to the technical demands of shooting such a contained film. We also dove into the film’s ending, so if you haven’t caught it yet, be sure to hit pause before we start breaking down all the film’s big twists and turn