Room is based on the 2010 novel of the same name by the Irish turned Canadian novelist/playwright Emma Donoghue. The film has already garnered accolades from almost all critical quarters with heaps of approbation for its lead actress, Brie Larson. It's a rather uncomplicated story with a plot that is broken up into two distinct parts.
For the first 45 minutes or so, a young mother, Joy, and five year old son, Jack, appear trapped in a small room where they've been residing for quite a long time. Eventually it's revealed we're watching a horror story: seven years earlier, when Joy was 17 years old, she was kidnapped by a neighborhood pervert, Old Nick, who has kept her prisoner in a shed next to his house. Old Nick makes what appear to be weekly visits bringing groceries but also rapes Joy whenever he comes over. There's no escape from the room that only has one skylight window since Old Nick is the only one who knows the numbers to the combination lock to enter.
Jack is born as a result of Old Nick violating Joy and it's her son that's the only thing keeping her alive. The child does remarkably well despite growing up in such a deprived environment. Joy teaches Jack how to make a birthday cake and he plays with the limited amount of objects found in the room—occasionally Old Nick might bring the boy a present (such as an electric model car). There are of course tensions between mother and son—Joy doesn't react well when Jack throws a tantrum for example.
The best part of the picture is the way in which Joy and Jack are rescued from this abominable situation--but unfortunately it's not all that believable. Joy's plan is to have Jack pretend that he's dead and instruct him how to escape from inside a rolled up rug after Old Nick drives away in his pickup to dispose of the "body." The entire escape is predicated on Old Nick's decision not to check to see if Jack is really dead—as the scene plays out, Old Nick inexplicably backs off after Joy screams at him not to look at Jack because (as she explains it to him), she can't stomach the idea of the pervert touching her dead son. The subsequent way in which Jack miraculously escapes from Old Nick's truck and the heart- pounding way in which the police figure out where the little boy came from, make up for the slow-moving turn of events in Act One.
The second half of Room does not have the rising tension found in the first. The focus on how all the family members adjust is what the second half of Act Two is all about. Joy returns home to find her mother Nancy divorced from her father Robert, and now married to Leo. There is an underdeveloped subplot involving Robert who is repulsed by the idea that Jack was conceived through rape and that his father was pervert Old Nick. Robert goes home to an out of state residence and his catalog of resentments remain unexplored.
A better subplot involves the intrusion of the media upon Joy and the rest of the family. Joy agrees to give an interview to a reporter for money and she asks her painful questions about what went on with Old Nick and whether she made the right decision in raising Jack and depriving him of a normal childhood (the suggestion is made that she could have convinced Old Nick to leave the newborn Jack anonymously at a hospital).
Conflict develops between Joy and Nancy and eventually there's the rather predictable trope of Joy attempting suicide. Most critics found Jack's acclimation to his new found world to be touching and cathartic. When he bonds with Leo's dog and a new pal next door, all seems right with the world. And even Joy is seen getting herself together at film's end.
So what is one to think of all this? It's a story that I suppose holds one's interest to the end; although the central twist (i.e. the escape), feels contrived. While the young Jacob Tremblay did a fine job playing Jack, his successful adjustment to the outside world feels to me much more schematic than cathartic, as many critics insist. As for Brie Larson, calls for her to win an Oscar for best actress seem misplaced--although her performance is fine given the pedestrian script.
In the end, Room rises to the level of an average Lifetime movie, with a few interesting twists and turns here and there but more predictable elements making up the bulk of the overall proceedings.
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