Room (2015)

Directed by: Lenny Abrahamson

Written by: Emma Donoghue (novel & screenplay)

Starring: Brie Larson & Jacob Tremblay








(I finally saw it!  All I need to see is Carol and Beasts with No Nation to know all the movies in this year's award shows.)

Anyway, let's begin the review.

Joy (Larson) has been locked up in a garden shed for seven years.  She had a son, Jack (Tremblay), who just turned five.  And now it's time to escape.  Cleverly planned, Jack is able to get help to save them from this room that is Jack's whole world.  He knows nothing else and now it is time to face the unknown.  Joy,  ecstatic to be out wants to go back to the world she knew, but can probably no longer go back to.  Room tells the story through Jack's eyes of what this new world is like.

I did not like this film.  I mean, it was okay, but Tremblay annoyed me.  I don't blame him of course.  I blame Donoghue, the writer, who gave him so many lines.

The problem I had with this film is that the whole story is through Jack, a five-year-old.  I would have preferred it being through Joy.  I understand that we were supposed to learn with Jack about the outside world just as he was, but as an audience member, I know what the world is like.  I don't need to be told what is what and what not.  Of course he also observed his mother who was having a mental breakdown, but I would have liked it to be less of Jack and more of Joy.

Another problem I had with the film is that there is not much of a plot.  They are in the room and then they are out.  That's it.  True, they adjust back to the outside world, but it isn't as interesting as I'd hoped it'd be.

Despite the negatives, there is one positive.  Larson was amazing.  I can see why she's been winning for her performance.  Of course, it isn't easy to act with children.  And also, she is pretty much bipolar in the film.  She has to act happy for her son, when inside she's dying most of the time.  Who knows how many times she cried in the film; I didn't keep count.  But I did think she deserved to win for those two reasons alone.  Congrats Larson, you may just become the next Jennifer Lawrence.

I'd suggest renting it and was going to give it 2 popcorns, but Larson was really great in the film, so I'll bump it up to 3.