Room Review
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Room
A24 films
R 118 min
Spoiler alert, read at your own peril.
The other of the two unexpected best picture nominees is one I'm sure would never have seen the light of day but for the nomination. I have to give credit to yet another Irish Canadian production, ROOM for owning the most aggressive plot, the most unexpected storyline and probably biggest surprise of any of this year's offerings.
I still don't think it will win but it's certainly a breath of fresh air.
There are stories in the news, one from out west, one from Austria or somewhere similar and one famous example right down the road in Cleveland.
You will know the exact situation I'm talking about as we unravel a little of the plot here. ROOM opens with a woman, (Brie Larson) in her early twenties and her five year old Jack (Jacob Tremblay) living in one small room that contains a little toaster oven, sink, bathtub, TV, bed and clothes wardrobe. As the opening minutes go by we begin to realize that Jack has never been outside of this enclosure. Mother and son have developed a bond and a completely unique society all their own. The television shows pictures but they discuss those images as what is real and not real. At just about 15 minutes I was dreading the fact that I might have to sit through another 90 minutes of this tedium when a revelation occurs. We find out Ma has been kidnapped and imprisoned in this shed and repeatedly raped, which resulted in Jacks birth.
Her tmentor, Old Nick, arrives daily to molest her and bring food and some basic necessities.
Suspense slowly mounts as Ma plans an escape and the audience, thankfully, becomes drawn in.
I hope you are going to see the film before you read this but it's not just a one location film like THE MARTIAN or CUJO. Eventually an escape comes to pass and you might guess the film would shift gears to a police drama trying to track down and punish Old Nick, but like me, you'd be mistaken. Actually the rest of the film considers how the world might affect someone who's been trapped more than 5 years but even more the boy who has never known anything else.
It's fascinating to watch their reactions to the real world as well as the way that world react to them.
The climax, well ending, itself is neither sunshine and rainbows nor is it gloom and doom.
It's something that hasn't been seen very often and very well done with less than stellar production values and flash.
Very unique.
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WSS
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yep. out of all the best pic nominees this is the one i want to see the most.
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