It doesn’t take long to get the idea behind Room, or so you think. Looking at a confined closed space, home to a mother and her 5 year old son, who go about business as usual besides not being able to ever go out and the only idea of ‘outside’ for them is a roof window.
Frankly, my first guess was something post apocalyptic. No, normally one wouldn’t think so but I delved into the film right in, and had not the slightest clue of what it is about.
So, here is the plot of the film. Room is the story of Joy Newsome (Brie Larson) who gets held hostage and eventually raped by a man who locks her up in his garden shed (room) for seven years, where she gives birth to her son Jack (Jacob Tremblay), whose idea of the real world is that room until one day both of them break free, and instead struggle making amends with the real world.
Based on Emma Donoghue’s book Room, the film showcases a tremendously astonishing journey of a little kid trying to forget all what he knew about the world for five years and replace it with reality. But here’s the thing, Room almost poetically makes one think whether this world is real or not, or are we all kept here away from the real world. Sure this idea wasn’t intended but my mind wanders, and so will yours if you ponder over the intricacies of the film.
Director Lenny Abrahamson uses hand-held fast paced shots in the beginning of the film as we get to know about the room, almost as if suggesting that this is pace works in this space, where a mother longs for her old life and a son literally thinks that out of this room is outer space.
Room holds attention through its camerawork, that gets berserk and trembles, and makes the viewer adapt to the tone of the film, with ease.
Room tells you so much about immense possibility and consequences of something like kidnapping, through the lens of a five-year old, something I haven’t come across in a long long time.
Jacob Tremblay is beautiful as Jake in the film and his character shapes up so deeply and takes time to build up as it goes.
Brie Larson got an Academy Award for this one, and whosoever gave up on her too along with Captain Marvel is going to regret big time, when he spots her owning Joy Newsome’s character. Her playing a helpless girl and mother, is the closest to portraying the state of mind of a mentally and sexually harassed person.
Jack missing his room where he was held out of will, is an eerie example of how comfortable any surrounding can get if the illusion of it being “home” is fed to us. There’s enormous love, affection, warmth as well as devastation in the film.
The F Word 