by A.J.
2015 (88th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee
Room is the
smallest in scale and scope of the 2015 Best Picture nominees, and also feels
the most intimate. The premise seems challenging and unpleasant: a young woman
and her five-year-old son are being held against their will in a shed in
someone’s backyard. The focus of the film, however, is the relationship between
mother and son. Room is the only one
of this year’s Best Picture nominees which I probably would not have seen
without the nomination; however, I’m glad that I saw it. It’s a
well-constructed, emotionally effective drama.
Room is a film in
two parts: inside “Room” and outside of it, back in the world. The story is
simple, but more than adequate to fill out Room’s
two-hour runtime. The movie opens with Jack narrating his day and surroundings.
To hide the unpleasant, harsh reality of their situation his Ma, played by Brie Larson, has told Jack that “Room” is the entire world, everything they see on
TV, cartoon and people alike, isn’t real. She has also kept the truth about his
father, their captor, from young Jack. Ma does everything she can to make a
normal life for Jack in “Room” and does surprisingly well. Their daily routine is
not unlike any other parent and child’s daily normal routine: brushing teeth,
cooking food, TV time, story time. Perhaps most helpful of all is that they
refer to objects in “Room” without articles, making everything in their little prison
seem friendly. Jack wakes up and says “Good Morning, Clock.” When their captor,
referred to only as “Old Nick,” visits and abuses Ma, Jack hides in “Wardrobe.”
Jack’s narration, which guides us both inside and outside of
“Room” fits the film well and, fortunately, is not cutesy the way movies often
present the thoughts of children on the mysterious adult world. Brie Larson is
nominated for Best Actress and seems to have a decent shot at taking home the
Oscar. I’m not sure that Larson would get my vote for Best Actress, but there
is no denying she gives a good performance and is really believable as a woman
making the most of an unpleasant situation and as a mother taking care of and
protecting her son the best she can.
I think Larson’s work in the first half of the film is what
will earn her any accolades. When I think of the second half of the movie,
outside of “Room” and especially once they leave the hospital, Ma is largely
absent from my memory. That half of the movie is Jack’s story. The young actor
playing Jack, Jacob Tremblay, is good as a 5-year-old with a skewed view of the
world and, like his narration, is not cloying or precocious. In a scene at the
hospital, a doctor tells Ma that Jack will be able to adjust to the outside
world because he’s still plastic. Jack whispers to his mother that he’s not
plastic, he’s real; he is equally as endearing and annoying as I think any
five-year-old is likely to behave. Likewise, Larson’s believability as a mother
is due to her scenes of frustration with her son, for good reasons and
sometimes not, as much as the scenes of her motherly love.
Room is not as entirely dour and soul-wrenching as you might except from its premise. Its focus is the effect of the crime and abuse that’s happened to the characters, not the actual crime itself. Room is ultimately a family drama, concerned with the character’s interactions and relationships to each other. Jack’s slowly growing curiosity about the real world is helped by his relationship with his grandmother, played well by Joan Allen, and step-grandfather, Leo, played with low-key warmth by Tom McCamus.
Because Room is
based on a best-selling novel, many viewers may know the story already (the
fact that Ma and Jack escape from their captor was even revealed in film’s the
trailer), but even knowing how the story plays out does not make the visits of
Old Nick to “Room” and Jack’s escape any less tense.
Room is certainly
well-made, but there is not too much that stands out to me about its direction,
though Lenny Abrahamson is nominated for Best Director. Where Abrahamson
succeeds best is in making the viewer feel like a fly on the wall in “Room.” Even
after they escape their captivity and are thrown into the outside world the
movie keeps us close to Ma and Jack. The more I think about Room the more I realize that what I
liked about the movie had to do with its story and structure which stem from
the screenplay by Emma Donoghue, based on her novel. The screenplay,
performances, and wonderful score by Stephen Rennicks, are what elevate Room from being a made-for-TV fare or a
dark, dour crime story. There may be a misstep or two (like the canted camera
angles to show Jack’s disorientation with the outside world), but overall the
film works well and delivers big pathos. Room
is definitely a tear-jerker, there’s no way around that, whether you have kids
or not. It’s about family and stepping out of your own private world, in this
case a world that wasn’t asked for, and into the wide world of everyone and
everything else. I liked this movie, but critics and audiences loved Room. It made its way onto many critics’
best of the year lists, so it should be no surprise that it is included in the
Academy’s list as well.
Nominee: Ed Guiney, Producer
Director: Lenny Abrahamson
Screenplay: Emma Donoghue, based on her novel
Cast: Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Joan Allen
Production Companies: Element Pictures, No Trace Camping,
Film4
Distributor: A24 Films
Release Date: October 16, 2015
Total Nominations: 4, including Best Picture
Other Nominations: Actress-Brie Larson, Director-Lenny
Abrahamson, Adapted Screenplay-Emma Donoghue
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