RoomA mother's love can help a child weather the most terrible of nightmares. Room is the story of Jack (Jacob Tremblay), a five year old boy born in captivity, who has never known a life outside of "Room"--the isolated and soundproofed shed he lives in with his mother, Joy "Ma" Newsome (Brie Larson). Joy was abducted seven years prior--still a teenager--by the malevolent Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), who--unbeknownst to Jack--is his father by rape, and who begrudgingly keeps them both alive, although the threat of violence is always present. One day, Joy discovers an opportunity for escape, and sets Jack out on a quest for freedom into a world he has never known: ours.
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Room is essentially a movie told in two parts--that of Jack and Joy's time in captivity, and later, their challenges in acclimating once they are free from "Room". Between both parts, the common link is the adamantine bond between them, a symbiotic link which has kept them alive for years in "Room", but once they are free becomes something of a peril. For Joy to help her young son cope with life in "Room", she lied to him about their actual circumstances until it becomes clear that Old Nick is tired of keeping them alive, and will likely let them starve to death in the hermetically sealed shed. To Jack, there is no world outside of "Room"; the images on the television set are nothing more than phantoms, shadows dancing on a screen. Jack's narrow view of the world is Joy's means to insulate him from harm--a common response for a mother, especially given the dire reality of their world. Jack has names for all of the objects in "Room"--usually very literal names--and he addresses them as a child would a pet. It's remarkable to think that Joy was a mere seventeen years old when she was abducted, but in that time has been able to raise Jack with a degree of strength that few have. Conversely, their poor living conditions have left them malnourished, making Joy look even older; even a rotting tooth falls out at one point, which Jack keeps as a memento. Jack is forced to retreat into the wardrobe before Old Nick comes to visit, who subsequently rapes Joy while Jack--instructed by Joy--counts numbers to keep him distracted. But Joy exists in a state of perpetual crisis management as well; she seems the consummate pillar of strength to Jack, with only minor slips at times. When it becomes clear that Old Nick--now six months laid off--will likely stop supplying power to the shed indefinitely at some point, she summons her remaining strength to convince Old Nick that Jack perished from a bad reaction to a fever brought on by the cold. It is a visibly hard decision, not only because she must be without Jack for the first time since he was born onto the rug of the shed, but because it is a risky plan that may very likely result in them being parted forever. But just as Joy has kept Jack alive all this time, Jack saves her life after his adventure into the vast world outside of "Room", by remembering the number of stops in Old Nick's truck, in turn leading the police back to save his mother. Things change by necessity after they are removed from their long-term isolation. Joy is reunited with her parents, Nancy (Joan Allen) and Robert (William H. Macy), only to discover that they have since divorced and her mom is now involved with a former friend of the family, Leo (Tom McCamus). Just as Jack tries to acclimate to a world he has never known, Joy returns to a world that is more different than when she left it, and feels just as displaced. The only things that both of them know for sure with a measure of security is each other; but that relationship comes at the expense of the rest of the world Joy sought so hard to rejoin.
Although a work of fiction, Room draws from many similar, real-life abduction cases, such as the Ariel Castro kidnappings of Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Georgina "Gina" DeJesus in Cleveland, Ohio, miraculously saved after eleven years in captivity, along with the aid of Berry's six year old daughter. The mind reels to consider what kind of person would do this to another human being, but Room is not an exploration of Old Nick; it is about the relationship forged in times of crisis between a mother and son, and how integral a parent is in raising a child. Following her captivity, Joy struggles to cope, and turns to painkillers for an escape. She sleeps all day, torn between her impulse to always be with Jack and her very real need for some distance. The questions that haunt her about her relationship with Jack are provoked in a news interview--a necessary evil to finance their rising medical and legal fees--where Joy is forced to consider that her desire to keep Jack with her in "Room" may not have been exclusively for his benefit. This revelation challenges Joy's perception of herself as a "good" mother given the circumstances. Joy's struggle is one which pushes her to the brink, eventually leading to her isolation for her mental health. It is during these moments that the audience watches Jack truly grow into his new world, befriending Nancy and Leo, as well as Leo's dog, Shamus. The sense that Jack has had to be shielded from the world is ironic, considering it was Joy who pushed him to help them escape from their imprisonment. He leaves the hospital in black sunglasses and a face mask to protect him from the harmful effects of the world as he builds up his resistances. Joy recognizes the associations Jack makes between "Room" and his sense of security; when Jack awakens in the hospital, he goes to the window and looks up and down over a vast world that is terrifying in its scope and newness. Jack's emergence into the world recalls the legend of Kaspar Hauser, a youth in 19th century Germany whose story of being kept within a room until adulthood led to many widespread myths as well as Werner Herzog's The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. Jack's reaction to this world and Joy's revelation of its existence is also like Plato's "Allegory of the Cave", a story about primitives who only knew the world through the shadows cast on the wall by firelight. When one of them leaves the cave and comes back, telling the rest of what he saw outside, they doubt him, believing he must be crazy. This idea that people will subconsciously cling to a comfortable interpretation of their world to quell the existential angst within them--even when confronted with evidence to the contrary--is at the root of Jack's world.
Recommended for: Fans of an emotional character study of a boy whose view of the world is shattered paradoxically by his induction into our world. Room depicts the trials and tribulations that Jack and Joy must contend with in the aftermath of an extended period of horrible abuse and isolation from society.
Although a work of fiction, Room draws from many similar, real-life abduction cases, such as the Ariel Castro kidnappings of Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Georgina "Gina" DeJesus in Cleveland, Ohio, miraculously saved after eleven years in captivity, along with the aid of Berry's six year old daughter. The mind reels to consider what kind of person would do this to another human being, but Room is not an exploration of Old Nick; it is about the relationship forged in times of crisis between a mother and son, and how integral a parent is in raising a child. Following her captivity, Joy struggles to cope, and turns to painkillers for an escape. She sleeps all day, torn between her impulse to always be with Jack and her very real need for some distance. The questions that haunt her about her relationship with Jack are provoked in a news interview--a necessary evil to finance their rising medical and legal fees--where Joy is forced to consider that her desire to keep Jack with her in "Room" may not have been exclusively for his benefit. This revelation challenges Joy's perception of herself as a "good" mother given the circumstances. Joy's struggle is one which pushes her to the brink, eventually leading to her isolation for her mental health. It is during these moments that the audience watches Jack truly grow into his new world, befriending Nancy and Leo, as well as Leo's dog, Shamus. The sense that Jack has had to be shielded from the world is ironic, considering it was Joy who pushed him to help them escape from their imprisonment. He leaves the hospital in black sunglasses and a face mask to protect him from the harmful effects of the world as he builds up his resistances. Joy recognizes the associations Jack makes between "Room" and his sense of security; when Jack awakens in the hospital, he goes to the window and looks up and down over a vast world that is terrifying in its scope and newness. Jack's emergence into the world recalls the legend of Kaspar Hauser, a youth in 19th century Germany whose story of being kept within a room until adulthood led to many widespread myths as well as Werner Herzog's The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. Jack's reaction to this world and Joy's revelation of its existence is also like Plato's "Allegory of the Cave", a story about primitives who only knew the world through the shadows cast on the wall by firelight. When one of them leaves the cave and comes back, telling the rest of what he saw outside, they doubt him, believing he must be crazy. This idea that people will subconsciously cling to a comfortable interpretation of their world to quell the existential angst within them--even when confronted with evidence to the contrary--is at the root of Jack's world.
Recommended for: Fans of an emotional character study of a boy whose view of the world is shattered paradoxically by his induction into our world. Room depicts the trials and tribulations that Jack and Joy must contend with in the aftermath of an extended period of horrible abuse and isolation from society.