Joy is twenty-four years old. She has a son, Jack who’s five years old, and they live in Room; a small shed with a toilet, bath, television and squalid kitchen. Their only source of light is a skylight and they have limited furniture, including a wardrobe. Once a day at the same time, Jack goes into the wardrobe as their captor and Jack’s father, Old Nick (Sean Bridgers) enters Room and rapes Joy. After planning and executing an escape plan the two adjust very differently to the outside world.
Room is based on the novel of the same name by Emma Donoghue, which was inspired by the sickening Fritzl case where a father imprisoned and abused his daughter for nearly three decades, fathering seven children. Room may well be toned down in comparison, but it’s still an intense, often brutal story. Taking inspiration from such things would be challenging enough but adapting them into a novel and then for the screen would certainly have its hurdles, and indeed Emma Donoghue should be praised for her screenplay. Whilst there are a fair few supporting cast, the two leads are the focus and are both brilliant. Brie Larson gives an extremely honest, often understated performance as Joy, who seems to have adapted herself to the Room so well that her plans of escape feel selfless, although this is challenged in the second half. Jacob Tremblay is astoundingly good as Jack, capturing the innocence, inquisitiveness and ultimately the transformation of his character with a surprising amount of nuance, especially given the subject matter he would have had to deal with.
Room is essentially split into two acts, before and after the Room, and it feels as if it puts near equal amounts of time into each portion. Abrahamson hasn’t made this film nearly as dark as it could have been, where the first act and back story could have conceivably been History X or Requiem level dark. I don’t think this is because he wants the story to be more family friendly but rather that it would clash with the second act where Jack is first seeing the hope and the beauty of the world. However if building this contrast is one of the underlying intentions of Room, then it could have had a stronger emotional payoff in parts, however nit picky that issue may be.
That’s not to say Room doesn’t have some other frustrating issues. The sequence between the two acts has a montage from Jack’s perspective that feels sentimental when it should really be about the awe of the outside world in that moment. William H. Macy is criminally underused, elements of the cinematography seem ill-conceived and overall there are some pacing issues that make sections of the film feel rushed. The second act seems to have a lot more focus and was for me more interesting than the intense first act. At times I wondered if the film would have been better served to put more time into one of the periods over the other. These changes however would lead to a drastically different film and it’s undeniable that Room holds a lot of weight as is.
Room is a captivating, sometimes challenging and thought-provoking film that feels like a unique release in a period where a lot of different films are following the same formula. Where in parts the direction lets it down, its writing and performances more than make up for it.
