Film review: ROOM

Room takes what might be the year’s darkest subject matter and convincingly spins it into a hard-earned story of inspiration. Lenny Abrahamson’s adaptation of the eponymous Emma Donoghue novel details a life in captivity – and the trauma that follows – through a child’s eyes. That may not make for the warmest or easiest of moviegoing experiences, but Room transcends, burning bright by locating the universal within the unimaginable.

The film's first half is confined to a single space. To five year-old Jack (Jacob Tremblay) – and within the film’s boundaries – this “room” makes up the whole world. His mother, Ma (Brie Larson), has constructed a sense of reality for her son to cope with, to shield him from the despair of their situation. They’re locked in the garden shed of a maniac, a kidnapper and rapist who’s held Ma – formerly, Joy Newsom – for seven years, since she was 17. He visits nightly to have intercourse and drops off essentials on “Sunday Treat” day; whenever he’s present, Ma forces Jack into the closet. The circumstances are harrowing, the toll taken on Ma very clearly conveyed. But the scenes between Ma and Jack are profound, a small-scale drama theming strength, motherhood and unshakable love. Jack is as irritable and curious as any five-year old, but within the mythology that Ma establishes for him, he maintains stability. It’s an immensely difficult trick of pull off for a director, but Abrahamson keeps the first act of Room claustrophobic but not suffocating, intimate and tender without losing sight of the horror.

Like its source novel, Room maintains a low-key tempo even in the face of astounding circumstances. As she sketches out a risky escape plan, what Ma asks of her son is terrifying, and yet she’s so level-headed and assured that she keeps her son (and us) calm, focused and prepared. It’s a powerful display of parental strength, to say nothing of Jack’s own resolve. He is tasked to play dead, to trick their captor into allowing him to escape. Anyone who knows Room’s story – or the fact that, as the plan gets underway, there’s still over an hour to go – knows the outcome. Abrahamson smartly plays to this. His big sequence pummels you like an emotional wrecking ball: centered on Jack's astonishing experience of wonder, the music swells and the lens turns dreamy as he looks up at the sky for the first time. You feel the wonder, too. It’s a moment of overwhelming catharsis, beautifully rendered and suitably tense.

Room then shifts into a sort of post-trauma narrative, and it's a worthy follow-up, if not as focused as what preceded it. Oddly, but also fittingly, this is where the film really steps into the dark. Ma cries to her mother (Joan Allen, excellent) at one point, “I thought I’d be happy.” She’s flailing – after seven years of raising a child in a hopeless but consistent environment, she’s compelled to reflect on her tragedy. It’s despairing and rough, but also acutely realized: Ma, for a story told through a child’s eyes and centered on such an isolated experience, is an impressively fleshed-out character, flawed and damaged – and capable of making mistakes – yet no less loving or strong. Her characterization provides vital commentary on trauma and abuse – on the ability to move on, and on the struggle to reclaim oneself.

This is a big-hearted movie, an uplifting expression of the durability of the mother-son bond. It's a survivor story in which survival is dependent on the strength transmitted between a parent and their child. And Abrahamson is not a flashy director. He’s not much of a craftsman, his camerawork dutiful and his pacing rather basic. Room lacks that authorial stamp, that thorough artistic identity. But this shouldn’t be mistaken for a weak effort. Indeed, Abrahamson is always in control here. He has a smart sense of flow, one steeped in his trust of emotional nakedness. It’s all so raw; even the sharp break between the two acts doesn’t hinder this devastatingly sad-sweet confection.

The best marker of his direction, though, is his cast. Tremblay centers and guides this film in a way that resembles Quvenzhane Wallis’ work in Beasts of the Southern Wild. He’s shockingly good, demonstrating range and depth and a nuanced ability to connect with his co-stars. While much of the credit must go to the portrayer himself, Abrahamson’s role in eliciting such a measured and affecting performance should not be discounted. The duets between Tremblay and Larson combine fairy-tale mysticality with generous realism, invoking a dreamlike reality. Under Abrahamson's stewardship, Larson anchors this glittery juxtaposition. She is so bare, so unflinchingly authentic – there’s an incredible power to her work, active and thoughtful and yet utterly lost in the character. She plays Ma not merely as a pitied survivor or a resilient mother, but as someone struggling to juggle her scars, her love and her rage. It’s an exceptional, edifying character creation.

Room’s final scene takes Ma and Jack back to “Room.” It’s his wish to be able to say goodbye, to have a final memory of the cage in which he was raised – and it's her great fear. He comments on its size: “Did Room get smaller?” He opens the closet door, where he’d hide each night. He bids adieu to a dead plant and the bedside lamp. But Ma is stoic. She stares at the evidence markers, at the bathroom, at the peeling, browning walls. She’s barely holding it in, and as Jack says goodbye, she silently echoes his farewell: “Bye, Room.” She grins momentarily, grabs her son’s hand and walks away. This is her latest showing of love, the next step in her long road to recovery. 


Room is never easy, and its final scene underlines that it doesn’t intend to be. Abrahamson searches for universal truths within the extraordinary contours of his story. And it's precisely through that painful commitment to honesty that this film proves that no circumstance is beyond the human experience – and that the human spirit can always fight to live another day.

Grade: A-