Caught the 2015 movie Room, which is up for a few Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay), which is important to note since I’ll just go ahead and describe the movie as about a young woman who is kidnapped by a man and kept in a sex dungeon for seven years. See? It can’t be as sordid and disgusting as the description since, you know, academy award nominations! Oh, and she lives there with her five year old son… and doing the math, yes, she gave birth to her kidnapper’s child. Still with me?
This is a pretty amazing movie. It’s told from the boy’s POV so we rarely ever see anything too outright disturbing in terms of the relationship between his mom and the kidnapper. The movie knows how to tip-toe around and just give us enough information to upset us maybe without driving us from the theater in disgust. This isn’t an exploitation film though it certainly could have been.
But the movie isn’t just about being trapped in Room (as the 5 year old calls it, having no real awareness that there’s a world outside of Room), but it’s about trying to escape and then live as much of a normal life as possible (which is a spoiler but I think it’s important to know the movie doesn’t spend the whole film in degradation). But, wow, that escape is one of the most suspenseful things I’ve seen in a very long time… and the mother and son’s emotional journey to reconnect with – or connect with for the first time – the real world is great too.
The acting from Brie Larson as the mom and the Jacob Tremblay as the 8 year old kid (playing 5) is very strong, especially from the boy. You we not be forgiven for shedding a tear or two over the emotional mess and attempts to crawl out of the trauma. The boy giving mom his “strong” – wow. A simple, “I love you” near the end… yes. Wow again.
If this movie opened wide enough to be near you, I say check it out. It’s one of the best movies of 2015 and deserves at least a few of those Oscars its nominated for. Probably not best picture but surely best actress and maybe adapted screenplay (I have not read the book this is based on).
Score: 90