College students like to joke that living in an 11-by-11 foot room, maybe about half the size of your dorm room, would be a dream. Just Netflix all day without school, responsibilities, or people. Now imagine that this life is all you know. You don’t have any idea what “outside,” “windows,” or “space” even is. This is what 5-year-old Jack had to live with in Lenny Abrahamson’s new movie Room.
Room tells the suspenseful tale of Jack (Jacob Tremblay) and Ma (Brie Larson). Ma was kidnapped as a teenager and became pregnant with Jack two years into her captivation. Together, they live in what Jack knows as Room. Room is a shed in Old Nick’s backyard, and it’s Jack’s whole world. Nothing exists outside of it, or that’s what Ma tells him at least. Room has no windows, so he’s never seen life outside of television, which Ma tells him isn’t real anyway. While Jack brought a new meaning to life for Ma, she knows that Jack will soon outgrow Room and they need to escape.
This movie isn’t a thriller about whether or not they escape. In fact, their escape is in the first scene of the trailer. While the escape scenes did not feel as suspenseful as they were built up to be, the rest of the movie makes up for it with raw emotion. The film does not hold back from the reality of being held captive and trying to adapt in a world they hardly know anymore. Room is a story of life after escape.
You may think that everything would go back to normal, and so did Jack and Ma. The audience is taken on an emotional rollercoaster as they see the struggle between a mother who has done everything to protect her son and a world who thinks they know what’s best for him. Brie Larson perfectly portrays Ma in this way. The audience is captivated by her performance as she battles with depression while trying to put on a strong face for her son. Even though she wants to be a good mom, she also is very young herself and has to deal with her own emotional trauma.
ASU students can relate to this movie because it’s all about finding your strong. Through the darkest times in their tragedy, Jack and Ma had to keep each other strong, even when it felt like they had no one left. In Emma Donoghue’s novel from which the movie is based, readers are emerged into a child’s mind where the world has just been opened up. He struggles with accepting a new way of life while, at times, begging to go back to his old ways in the cramped shed. The movie takes a new direction and focuses less on Jack, and more on Ma as she discovers how much the world has changed. In college, we all find ourselves on different paths, but still must continue to be strong for one another.
Overall, the brilliant use of cinematography and acting made Room the terrific movie that it is. It explores perspectives of kidnapping and freedom that one would never consider. Audiences are not given the feel-good movie they may be expecting, but instead experience a honest, powerful performance that tells it like it is.
Room is based on a novel by Emma Donoghue and is out in theaters now.