I’m young, I’m healthy…….okay, maybe not but I don’t drink copious amounts, neither do I smoke, my arteries are only one-quarter full of fat, so I can’t be having a heart attack, and yet I feel that’s exactly what’s happening. Looking around I try to see if anyone else is gripping their chest, do they look as though the colour is draining from their skin? Are they sweaty? I can’t be the only one?? This film is nauseating and pain inducing, but still, it’s something everyone should see, as long as you don’t have a faint heart.
Greeting you almost in silence, the film opens with snapshots of objects interspersed between the cold and dark walls of a room. The silence unbroken but for the click of a lamp and a breath taken in the dark. Opening his eyes, a little boy known as Jack pictures the sparsely-filled room, its few items appearing as though they’re falling apart from over-use. But in actuality are small hints of a childhood being lived out; the crayoned foil, a newspaper ship, but from the dark his Ma (Brie Larson) calls out “go back to sleep”, for she’s trying to keep his innocence. From here the boy begins the narration of his life, and how through his existence he saved his mum.
A single skylight in the roof is all Jack (Jacob Tremblay) can see and knows of the outside world, the Room he lives in referred to like it’s all of Earth, and he even says good morning to the sink like it’s a neighbour or a friend. For here only Ma and he exist, there isn’t anyone else, except Old Nick (Sean Bridgers) and if you haven’t got it in the opening scenes, the beeping of an electric lock tells you everything you need to know – they’re prisoners. Ma having once upon a time lived outside the Room, but in the many years since has given birth to Jack and has raised him trapped within it as well, with Ma taking care to hide him away for each of Old Nick’s visits. The man’s presence showing how she’s been broken into servitude. His angry outbursts abundantly apparent even as she tries to please him – such is her desperation to protect Jack. But one thing she can’t stop is that Jack is getting bigger, and on his fifth birthday he painfully reminds her of the years that have passed and of those still threatening to come. Not only this but Jack is getting more defiant and she’s afraid of what to do next, and so with no choice they come up with a daring plan, and cue the audience’s heart attack.
Although Room isn’t based on a true story, it could be – and in this every moment is tense. Its subject matter showing the darker sides of what people are capable of. And in the minutes inside the Room, you feel as though you’ve come to know the characters, the pressure for them to get out becoming your own. But it’s the instantly captivating relationship of mother and son that keeps the film progressing. Their dependency on one another swinging back and forth as the relationship changes.
The acting in this film will take your breath away, Jacob Tremblay who plays Jack is just superb and puts many a grown actor to shame. He’s certainly one to watch in the years to come. Then there’s Brie Larson, the filmRoom launching her into Hollywood stardom, her portrayal sympathetic to the issues faced by those with years of imprisonment and torture. The world having changed from what she once knew, and as such her character’s transformation into it is gut-wrenching and realistic.
It might not be a film on the top of your wish list to see, it doesn’t have the rainbows for it, but this is acting at one of its highest peaks, its story gripping, in both its realism and drama.
Director: Lenny Abrahamson
Other notable works:
- Normal People 2020
- Frank 2014
Writer: Emma Donoghue
Based on the book Room by Emma Donoghue
