Adorable, powerful and literally captivating!
Room is a dive into the head of a child’s perspective, who witnesses the world for the first time. Emma Donoghue comes with a tale that is so beautifully wrapped under the outlook of Jack who believes space is confined. It is in a way reflective of how we have been living in today’s world, and how possibilities gawk at us from a distance, and we are never prepared to challenge ourselves into stepping out.
Ma: You’re gonna love it.
Jack: What?
Ma: The world.
The plot of Room unfurls like a beautiful flower. You are thrown into the mundane sphere of daily chores, and then suddenly you are told what’s happening and what seems to be the disconnect. It is hurled at you at once, amidst the regularity and it is hard to handle just like Jack’s head refuses to accept it. But then again that is the truth. Jack, the smart kid he is, accepts it and tries to help his Ma out, whilst challenging himself to a bizarre world that he has never encountered before.
What are quite thoughtful are Jack’s diegetic thoughts which go in the background often telling you how he feels about the world. They put your insight in the garbage. Seeing the beauty of the world through a learning phase is indeed really soothing. That’s where the screenplay goes really brilliant. His words are so powerful and yet so innocent that he will compel you to go broody.
Jacob Tremblay is exceptional as Jack who turns five and knows everything. Brie Larson plays an outstanding Ma, and fiddles with the right emotions. So is Joan Allen as Nancy, Jack’s grandma who epitomes sanity and tries to put sense and normalcy in the inane.
SPOILERS SHACKLED AHEAD:
Film’s most touching moment is when Jack reunites with his mother and the music bashes your nerves to dust. It makes you happy and sad at the same time. But that’s only the half of it. The rest of the movie progresses with how he tries to gel up with the asynchronous. Lenny attempts to manifest how Jack sees his surrounding through his sheepish eyes once he is out in the open. You can almost feel yourself feeling sorry for Jack and Ma. It would make you want to hug him right up and teach him the ways of the world.
Room concludes at an arresting juncture where Jack wishes to see the room he used to live in. He finds it smaller now that he has seen more of the world, and bids every object he used to adore so much in that room farewell, as his ultimate closure. It is really so pensive that you can’t shake it off. It was like he was in a womb till he aged five.
If you are a drama freak, you can’t simply miss this one. Brilliantly thought of and well written. Thank you Emma!
This is yet another mind-boggling movie by Lenny Abrahamson who brought us Frank an year ago. You can find the review of Frank here: Frank Review
