The Platform

I watched The Platform for the first time while sitting on a beanbag chair that was slowly leaking its foam guts onto my floor, and honestly, the feeling of gradual deflation felt oddly appropriate. It was March 2020. The world was shutting down, people were fist-fighting over 12-packs of quilted northern in grocery aisles, and Netflix decided to drop a Spanish dystopian thriller about a vertical prison where the only way to survive is to hope the guy above you isn't a total jerk. Talk about reading the room.

Directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, this movie is a nasty, efficient piece of high-concept filmmaking. It’s set in a concrete tower called "The Hole." There are hundreds of levels, two people per level, and a rectangular slab of gourmet food that descends from the top once a day. If you’re on Level 1, you eat like a king. If you’re on Level 150, you’re looking at your cellmate and wondering if they’d taste better with a little salt.

The Gospel of Obviousness

What I love about The Platform is that it doesn’t try to be subtle. In an era where blockbuster cinema often hides its "messages" under fifteen layers of lore and CGI capes, this film just slaps its premise on the table. It’s a literalized class system. If the people at the top ate only what they needed, there would be enough for everyone. But they don't. They gorge. They spit on the leftovers. It’s basically Snowpiercer for people who have a phobia of stairs.

Our way into this concrete nightmare is Goreng, played with a fantastic, fraying sanity by Ivan Massagué. Unlike the other inmates who are there for crimes, Goreng volunteered. He wanted a degree and thought he’d spend his six months reading Don Quixote. He even brought the book as his "one luxury item." His cellmate, the elderly and delightfully sinister Trimagasi (Zorion Eguileor), brought a self-sharpening knife. You can guess which one is more useful when the platform arrives empty.

Ivan Massagué goes through a hell of a transformation here. The actor actually lost 12 kilos during the shoot to mirror his character's physical decay, and you can see the light leaving his eyes as the "obvious" solutions to the Hole's problems turn out to be impossible. Goreng is basically a tragic version of Don Quixote if the windmills actually tried to eat him.

Making a Million Look Like a Billion

From a production standpoint, this is a masterstroke of "Independent Gem" ingenuity. With a budget of just over $1 million, the filmmakers couldn't exactly build a 300-story tower. Instead, they built two levels and used some clever editing and a physical, moving platform rig to create the illusion of endless depth. It’s a reminder that a great hook and a claustrophobic atmosphere can do more than a $200 million Marvel budget ever could.

The sound design is what really got to me. The mechanical clunk-shhhh of the platform moving is the heartbeat of the movie. It’s a sound that promises life and delivers disappointment. I found myself focusing on the way the food was plated—it starts as a Michelin-star feast and ends as a soggy, decimated pile of bones and broken glass. The production team handled the "food styling" (if you can call it that) with a stomach-turning attention to detail.

Then there’s the performance of Zorion Eguileor as Trimagasi. He is the MVP of the first act. His delivery of the word "obvio" (obvious) became a minor meme for a reason. He represents the cynical, tired middle-manager of the apocalypse—someone who isn't necessarily evil, but has completely given up on the idea that things could be better. His chemistry with Ivan Massagué is what grounds the movie before it takes a hard turn into surrealism and action in the final third.

The Streaming Phenomenon

It’s impossible to talk about The Platform without mentioning its life on Netflix. This was a film that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019, won the People's Choice Award for Midnight Madness, and could have easily been a forgotten "cult" title. Instead, the streaming algorithm turned it into a global talking point. It arrived at the exact moment when our real-world conversations about "essential workers" and "resource hoarding" were at a fever pitch.

Is it perfect? No. The third act introduces Emilio Buale as Baharat, a man trying to climb his way out, and the film shifts from a psychological character study into a bloody, symbolic quest. Some people hate the ending because it doesn't offer a neat, bow-tied explanation for the tower or its creators (The Administration). But I’d argue that the ending is actually better if you stop trying to solve it like a math equation. It’s a fable, not a blueprint. It’s meant to leave you feeling a bit hollow, like you’ve been standing on that platform yourself.

Ultimately, The Platform succeeds because it trusts the audience to handle its ugliness. It’s a movie that asks what you would do if you were on Level 1, while knowing full well that most of us are somewhere much further down. It’s a lean, mean, 95-minute punch to the gut that remains one of the most relevant films of the last decade. Just maybe don't watch it right before dinner. Or while sitting in a dying beanbag chair.