Review: "Room"

Movie: Room
Release date: March 3, 2016
Language: English
Director: Lenny Abrahamson
Based on: Room by Emma Donoghue
Stars: Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Sean Bridgers, Joan Allen, William H. Macy
Spoilers: Yes, I’m sorry. But it’s still worth it.
IMDB rating: 8.1
Rating: (5 / 5)

When I first saw the trailer of this movie, it seemed so interesting. Even though I usually really like movies with a bit more action and more character, this movie did get my attention right away.

“A kidnapped mother and son escape from a room in which they have endured imprisonment for the entirety of her son’s life. Upon breaking free from its confines, they experience a dramatic homecoming; provoking insight into the depths of imagination and the extent of a mother’s love.” (IMDb)

With only two people taking the lead in this movie, one of them being a five year old boy, it is already different from what we expect to see in cinema’s these days. The story is so heart-breaking and inspirational that I feel like it is my duty to make people watch this.

The movie starts off with Joy (Brie Larson) and Jack (Jacob Tremblay) in a room. Duh. We quickly learn that this room is all Jack has ever seen. Jack says hello to everything in the room every day, greeting his entire world in only a couple of minutes. We learn that Jack and Joy do so much together, she gives him so much love, and Jack appreciates all of it because it’s all he knows.

At first I was a little sceptic about the fact that the kid never questions what’s outside, considering they have a TV, but Joy has explained to Jack that the TV people aren’t real and that there is nothing outside the walls of room.

When they eventually escape from room and have the guy that put them in there locked away, the story actually begins. There’s so much that this movie shows with only a couple of sets and a small cast. Jack learns about the outside world, not accepting anything at first and slowly adjusting to the idea of there being more rooms, an outside, a sky, animals and everything. It’s really interesting to see how this kid learns eventually passes his mother in accepting what’s there.

This movie also shows an intense love between a mother and a child. Joy was the only person Jack ever really knew. He had seen Old Nick (their kidnapper) in room, of course, but he never got to know him. Jack and Joy are so together as characters, with Joy being the only one to understand Jack and Jack only trusting Joy, I wanted to cry at how beautifully this love was portrayed.

There is a scene in which they go back to room, which was just heart-breaking. I have no other words to describe it. When Jack asks Joy to go back, she thinks he means that he wants to live there, which she can understand from Jack, since it is his safe place, where he had grown up; it was all he knew for five years long. Then, Jack explains that he just hasn’t said goodbye to everything in room, which he used to do every night before he went to bed. This convinced Joy to let Jack go back, for closure. Once they get there, Jack explains how it all seems so small now, that it must be smaller than what it was, and this moment really made my eyes water. He had learned and accepted that there was so much more than just room, that there was a whole world to discover.

Bonus: the acting alone is worth seeing this movie for. Brie Larson actually stayed home for a month before shooting the movie, to get into the mind-set of her character that had been locked in a small room for years. Also a big shout-out to Jacob, who plays Jack. He is one of the best child-actors I have ever seen.

In a nutshell:
Liked: Absolutely!
Loved it: Yes!
Re-watch: Obviously. Can’t get enough of such a great story!
Cinema worthy: Definitely!