1 hr & 59 min,
color, 2015
When
we were very small children, the world as we understood it extended not much
further than the walls that housed us.
None of us can recall when we learned that life exists outside our front
doors or that the earth is a sphere, in contradistinction to the flat floor
beneath our feet, but such moments did occur, whether we can pinpoint them or
not. Each of us was born in a box
conceptually speaking. And at some day
or hour we discovered that there was a door in that box, and after we passed
through that door, we found ourselves in another and larger box and at some
crucial point we learned that that box too had a door, and so forth and so
on. Our world got bigger and
bigger. Sometimes the passage through
one of those portals was exciting, sometimes we found it scary, or at the very
least confusing, but we made our fumbling way with the help of older and more
experienced individuals, a journey we could never have completed on our own.
But suppose a child’s
conceptual development were to be unnaturally suppressed for as long as the
first five years of life. What impact
would an abrupt change of physical and material environment have upon that
child’s tender mind and heart? Jack
(Jacob Tremblay) is a half decade old, when that rude awakening happens to
him. His mother Joy (Brie Larson) has
been locked inside a shed with no window except a small skylight for seven
years, captive of a man who alone knows the code to the combination lock on the
shed’s metal door. By passing references
we learn that as a teenager she was lured by him under the false pretense of
helping him care for a sick dog, only to find herself imprisoned. They call the man (Sean Bridgers) Old Nick,
not ever having been told his real name.
There in that tiny space she has been continually forced to submit to
him, while Jack stays in a closet, Jack being the offspring accruing from one
of those frequent rapes. (Let the viewer
fear not! The rapes are not made
explicit; there is no violence in the film.)
For Jack they are not in a
room (lower case r); they are in Room (upper case). Room is home; Room is the world. A TV has been furnished for them by their
captor, and Jack has come to perceive that nothing on that screen is real, only
make believe. All that exists are Room
and outer space, which by his reckoning is on the other side of the walls that
surround them. He has a scant number of
toys. He has seen animals on that TV
screen and considers himself the owner of a dog named Lucky, again make
believe. His first encounter with a real
live four-legged creature is a mouse crawling across the floor that he tries to
befriend, as any child would befriend a teddy bear, until Joy kills it in his
immediate presence. The moment is quite
painful for the boy. He has no idea at
all that beyond that metal threshold is a community with other living and real
people like the two of them. Joy tells
him stories and sings him songs and amuses him in any makeshift way she
can. Old Nick is nothing more than the
ogre who provides their necessities, a kind of devil that for their survival
must be kept at bay; Joy has schooled Jack to think of the man as someone not
their friend and not to be trusted. Jack
knows practically nothing about how he came to be in Room with his Ma, and from
all appearances has not inquired further in the direction of finding out. He is oblivious to Old Nick’s fatherhood of
him; in his world there is no such person as Dad.
But at the age of five Joy
decides that it is time for Jack’s conceptual understanding of reality to be
bumped up, for the fantasy he has been living and that she has been cruelly
forced to live with him to come to an end.
She starts dropping references to a Grandma and Grandpa he is connected
to somewhere else – somewhere other than far flung outer space. He rebels against the notion at first, but
she persists, knowing that their freedom, for which she longs, depends upon him
grasping the idea. The movie is most of
an hour along when they effect their escape through a most ingenious and risky
ruse. Every viewer’s heart will jump up
to the throat pulling for them.
Joy and Jack land in the
hospital under police protection where they are rejoined with her mother (Joan
Allen), whom Jack at once starts calling Grandma. During the seven terrible years Joy’s mother
has divorced the father (William H. Macy) and is currently living with a
friendly man named Leo (Tom McCamus), who endears himself to the daughter and
grandchild. But the new freedom is a new
and bigger box for the mother and child to find their way through, and within
minutes we realize that the tension and suspense are far from over.
The film has everything a
quality drama could possess. The acting
is superior, as is the gifted direction by Lenny Abramson and the incisive and
sensitive writing by Emma Donoghue adapting her own novel. This is not a thriller; what unfolds is a
superb affair of the heart that uncovers a prodigious degree of vulnerability
on everyone’s part. What beautiful and
consuming moments Donoghue has created for these well drawn characters!
Larson has won major awards
(including the Oscar and the Golden Globe) and reaped much praise for her
performance, all of which she deserves as far as I am concerned. This woman she plays is not a two dimensional
wise-big-mother-knows-best creation; she is much, much more, with multiple moods
and curves and reversals and delicate waters to navigate. Her face tells the untold story of Joy’s
crisis past, one that is not entirely resolved; she has extraordinary range and
puts it to marvelous use. But having
said all that, it needs to be made clear that the story belongs chiefly to
Jack. All that happens is seen from his
point of view; he is in practically every scene; his experience of the odyssey
from captivity to precarious freedom is foremost in emphasis. And Tremblay does great work giving him
authentic presence. Once again magic has
been rendered in the directing of a child performer.
As for the boxes within boxes
of which our lives consist, it needs to be remembered that some boxes have more
than one door. We are called upon to
make choices between doors, and leaving through one door may make it difficult
to find our way back to some point of origin from which we can make another and
better choice. The more our perceptions
improve, the more life grows complicated and sometimes fraught with peril! From what happens in Jack’s life in the
weeks following their liberation from the shed, we can easily surmise that this
kid will grow up fast when he inevitably learns who his biological father is
and when he begins to meet other kids at the school that awaits him. The film does not carry us that far along;
these developments are left to our imagination.
Joy has to confront demons in
her own head once she is released from the seven-year confinement. She has what looks like a case of PTSD. What greater a trauma can a young woman
endure than what she has been through?
She is surprised by the onrush of depression. And Larson makes the struggle quite
poignant. Thankfully she is able to
fight the battle among people who love her.
I
am so pleased that this film was not mounted in Hollywood. I can imagine what might have been done with
the book. It is an independent Canadian/Irish production that is so very
well edited and paced and conceived, and the intelligent choice was made to
have Donoghue doing the screenplay and giving her free rein in partnership with
a first rate director. It may be about a
child, but I suggest that no one under eleven or twelve be allowed to see
it. A younger child might find it very
disturbing. But for most adults it
should be quite absorbing and maybe rewarding.
They do not make motion pictures any finer than this.
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com. To learn about me consult on the website the
blog entry for August 9, 2013.
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