Director: Lenny Abrahamson
Starring: Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Sean Bridgers, Joan Allen
Genre: Drama
Rating: 15
Plot Summery: ‘Room’ tells the extraordinary story of Jack, a spirited 5-year-old who is looked after by his loving and devoted mother. Like any good mother, Ma dedicates herself to keeping Jack happy and safe, nurturing him with warmth and love and doing typical things like playing games and telling stories.
Their life, however, is anything but typical–they are trapped–confined to a 10-by-10-foot space that Ma has euphemistically named Room. Ma has created a whole universe for Jack within Room, and she will stop at nothing to ensure that, even in this treacherous environment, Jack is able to live a complete and fulfilling life.
But as Jack’s curiosity about their situation grows, and Ma’s resilience reaches its breaking point, they enact a risky plan to escape, ultimately bringing them face-to-face with what may turn out to be the scariest thing yet: the real world (taken from IMDb)
Review: I read the book of, ‘Room‘ a good while ago now and I really struggled with it. Mainly the fact that the entire thing was written from Jack’s 5 year-old point of view but I was still interested to see the film and how they managed to translate such an unusual storyline onto the big screen. I’m a sucker for film adaptations anyway so I was quite excited for this – despite the fact the book wasn’t for me.
I thought the film was brilliantly done and I thoroughly enjoyed it, ten-fold more than the book. Although Jack is narrating some of it, it doesn’t solely focus on Jack’s narration – which for me, worked a lot better. Getting quick snippets into Jack’s mind and mentality but not relying on it in order to move the story forward. Spoiler alert from here onwards.
I honestly can’t remember an awful lot about the book – I can’t remember what they took out or left in or whether they made bits up for the film but I loved how they unintentionally split the film into two halves: the first half being spent in room and the second half, after having escaped, trying to navigate the outside world. It was fascinating to see Jack try and get to grips with absolutely everything that was new to him. Which was practically everything.
Brie Larson is a beautiful actress, I’ve always been a big fan of hers and she played Joy, ‘Ma’, perfectly. She portrays her sensitivity and devotion to Jack as well as her frustration and desperation towards the situation spot on. I also thought Jacob Tremblay who played Jack did a fantastic job too as I can imagine it was a difficult role to play. Overall, I was dead impressed with the film. Whether you’ve read the book or not, definitely worth a watch.