Room (Lenny Abrahamson, 2015)
Imdb
Date Watched: 4/07/16
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: I've been wanting to see it since I first heard about it
Rewatch: No
Possible Spoilers Ahead
It would be too easy to turn a story like this – about a woman who was abducted, imprisoned, and raped for seven years – into some sort of uninspired horror film or a cheesy Lifetime-esque tale of a woman triumphing over adversity and being lovingly embraced by her family once rescued. Instead what we get is a portrait of the strength of maternal love and of the psychological damages of isolation and torture.
Brie Larson stars as Ma, a woman imprisoned in a 10 x 10 foot, sound proofed shed. There are no windows. The door can only be opened with a secret code – known only to her captor, who she calls Old Nick. The only natural light comes from a skylight, which she often stares at in quiet desperation. There is a bed, a wardrobe, a lamp, a toilet, a sink, a bathtub, a refrigerator and a toaster oven. There is also a rug – still marked with the stain from when Ma gave birth to Jack, her five year old son by Old Nick.
The novel on which this film is based tells the story from Jack’s perspective and in his own words, but such a limited view doesn’t really work for film. So instead we get it from Ma’s perspective. She does everything she can to make life as normal as possible for her son, who grows increasingly frustrated with the stark contrast between what he sees on television and what is available in Room – the euphemistic name Ma has given to the shed.
The central performances of the film, Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay, are both excellent – as they need to be since we see almost no one else for a significant portion of the film.
Room has garnered a lot of praise (and awards) for these performances, but the thing I liked most about the film was how it treated their transition from Room to World. It’s not a fairy book happily ever after. Ma – whose real name is Joy – enacts a plan that results in her rescue and she is reunited with her parents and returns with Jack to her childhood home. There she must face the reality of her parents’ divorce, her mother's new relationship, her father’s refusal to accept or even so much as look at her son, and the prying and victim-blaming of the media. Jack – who has known no one but Ma and who has seen so little – must learn how to be a normal kid. Both struggle to cope, but find strength in each other.
Room is not an easy watch, but it a very powerful experience and one I highly recommend.