ROOM (A) - Brie Larson and an incredible child actor propel this profoundly touching drama about a young mother held hostage in a small room with the five-year-old fathered by her captor.
As with the fine film "Nebraska" last year, I was so moved by "Room" that I am shy about writing all that much about it. "Room" -- adapted from the popular book by its author, Emma Donoghue -- is in the sure hands of director Lenny Abrahamson, who haunted us last year with "Frank," a somewhat similarly offbeat story of depression and melancholy. Neither the script nor the direction make a false step. This is a perfectly crafted film that blends raw family drama with psychological horror, all underlined with a keen sense of humanity and hope.
Larson ("Short Term 12") stars as Ma, who has been locked in a shed by a middle-aged creep for about 7 years. There she has bonded with 5-year-old Jack (Jacob Tremblay), her bright, adorable long-haired son. His only world, since birth, has been those four walls and the shabby contents within. There is an unreachable skylight that hints at the outside world. There also is a closet, where Jack is shunted to when the captor, Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), visits Ma, forcing her into a sexual relationship.
It is hard to imagine this movie existing without Larson at its core and young Tremblay, showing the maturity and nuance of a veteran stage actor. The tiny world of Ma and Jack is both suffocating and rife with possibilities. Ma doesn't shield Jack from many of the realities of their situation and the stories he experiences through the limited images he watches on an old television set. In an opening scene, Jack awakens and circles the room, extending a kind greeting to all the objects he sees, such as the sink and the toilet. That moment will be bookended at the end of the film in heartbreaking fashion, when Larson sums up her character's ordeal in a silent mouthed phrase.
The film clocks in two minutes short of two hours, and at just about the exact halfway mark, Ma and Jack manage to escape. The second half of the movie is devoted to their immersion into society and the home of Ma's parents, Nancy (Joan Allen) and Robert (William H. Macy), who has been replaced in the intervening years by an old family friend, Leo, McCamus, in Nancy's bed. Macy works wonders in just a few short scenes, conveying layers of emotion that prevent him from embracing the return of his daughter and grandson. There's a touch of "Ordinary People" in the tension between parents and daughter.
Because of the presence of the media outside the family's door, Ma and Jack are newly trapped inside a dwelling, albeit a swell suburban manse. Donoghue neither overplays nor underplays the challenges Ma faces during this re-entry, while Jack slowly flowers into a regular boy exploring a lush, nurturing world with his grandmother and Leo. And when Ma acts out, endangering the mother-son bond, it's a stunning jolt, and we deeply feel Larson's absence during that stretch, just like Jack must miss Ma.
Larson and Tremblay are remarkable but never showy. They are fully immersed in these characters, and as such, there are no seams showing as they execute Donoghue's nimble dialogue. Abrahamson paces it all perfectly. I was driven to tears during both the escape and the elegant final scene. They all teamed up to create a fictional world that is achingly real. That world and the real one are full of wonders.
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