A Lifetime Channel-Movie with a Big Budget

Rating: Null/10 (1 March 2016)

Watching "Room" is like taking in a film on the Lifetime channel with an A-list cast and a big budget. Like the novel that was the basis for the film, there is a two-part melodramatic structure to the narrative.
Melodrama #1 depicts the harrowing captivity of a woman held hostage by her captor for a seven-year period in a dingy, claustrophobic shed in the offender's back yard. Two years into captivity, the woman delivered a baby boy, who is now five years old. The first half of the film plays out like a Harold Pinter drama with the mundane dialogue of the mother and son, plus menacing visits from the captor.
The second melodramatic action follows the daring escape of the child, who is successful in alerting the authorities, who free the mother from the shed. The second half of the film is the more engaging because it introduces the family members and seeks to portray the recovery of the traumatized mother and child. Unfortunately, there are too many plot holes in this intense drama, the most glaring of which is the insensitivity of the grandfather character, as played by W. H. Macy.
The screenplay was adapted by Emma Donoghue from her novel, and her strong suit is in storytelling, not character motivation. At one of the crucial junctures of the film, when the mother needed support from the family, the grandfather refused to even look at the boy.
In the novel, it is made clear that the father is tormented by the idea that the grandson would have the same face as the perpetrator who abducted and raped his daughter. But in the film, the little boy's face is a dead ringer for the mother--not the father. The motivation was not spelled out in the screenplay, and the film's director was completely oblivious of the unmotivated action of the grandfather. In the DVD's commentary track, the director spoke of deleting a scene where the grandfather peeks into the bedroom of the little boy, but still cannot bring himself to look at the child. By restoring that scene, the motivation for Macy's character would still be confusing to the audience.
At the premiere of the film at the Landmark Theatre on West Pico in Los Angeles, there was an artistic installation of the 11' X 11' room that was recreated on the site. Such a display indicates the shortcomings of this film in the superficial treatment of a serious topic. This film should have offered a strong social commentary about predators like the one who abducted the young woman. Shouldn't the television reporter be investigating the perpetrator, instead of grilling the young woman, as we see in the film? The overall effect of the film sadly trivializes a serious subject and turns a topic that should evoke moral outrage into a routine tearjerker.