Room 237

The concept is wonderful – a whole documentary exploring potential hidden meanings in the movie The Shining – and it was acclaimed. My personal feelings are lukewarm though.

The explorations of the subtext involving the violence and exploitation of the indigenous population and blacks by white Americans are by far the best part of the movie. Neither one was touched upon with nearly enough depth though. I also wasn’t seeing anything noteworthy about instability of the American nuclear family. I’ve read some say The Shining could be taken as a metaphor for the dissatisfaction of men, who aren’t meant to be monogamous, with life as a longtime husband and father, but Room 237 doesn’t explore that. I don’t recall anything cool theories in this movie regarding ghosts, the innate evil in human beings, or the non-linearity of time either.

Instead, it felt like at least 25-30% of the film gave some nutjob a forum to grasp at straws and tell us that The Shining was Kubrick’s way of confessing the moon landing was a hoax and he’d directed it. I feel it’s irresponsible to give people who are anti-facts, anti-science, and anti-knowledge any sort of platform. While moon landing conspiracy theorists are certainly not causing the sort of harm anti-vaxxers and climate change deniers I’ve vented about are, they are hardly harmless in the way they encourage believing whatever you want to believe and writing off any evidence against you as the work of “The Man” and not to be trusted.

Bottom line: Pass. Watch a good YouTube video like this instead.

Up Next: A different take on the story.