A Room Without A View You Wont Forget Easily

Rating: 9/10 (1 February 2017)

When the four main components that make a movie better than average are brought together the result can be striking. First, is the importance of a good script with a strong story that many should be able to relate to & when this essential element has its basis in fact, it's already well ahead. Emma Donoghue's script supplies all this. Follow with a director who has a personal passion to bring this particular story to life & Irish born (of Eastern Jewish parentage) Lenny Abrahamson was the right choice.
If Performers have a large role in convincing us to care and feel for the subjects they play - this film certainly has those! Next comes someone to create images that will draw us into each situation and with Award nominee Cinematographer Danny Cohen ('The Kings Speech') this is almost perfectly achieved. I say almost, as the 11 x 11ft set he was given to capture a large degree of his shots in would have been extremely limiting - this no doubt created obstacles i'm sure everyone would have preferred to do without (referring to a couple of clumsy but minor, hand help shots). A sympathetic producer who wants the best result caps a good production off.
Stephen Rennick's sensitive Music Score and carefully detailed Editing lifts this work even higher. Multi-talented Brie Larson certainly earned her well deserved Oscar as 'Ma', with young Jacob Tremblay surprisingly impressive as son Jack. All cast members work hard to make this harrowing film unfold in a naturalistic manner. When generally mindless 'action' movies win massive amounts of Awards and spend obscene amounts of money achieving this â€“ it's refreshing when a life affirming gem like 'Room' comes along to add balance to the industry. With the task of pleasing everybody being just about impossible - some won't be able to relate to 'Room's' highly claustrophobic, personal situations so, the hard and fast action aficionados won't understand the accolades. Others will be astounded and may even come back for a second visit.
If being technical, I'm perhaps a little perplexed as how the 'garden shed' with its skylight kept the screams out of neighbor's ear range and the captors in for so long but, perhaps this demented captor had rebuilt the internals with heavily padded materials - I understand the original situation this story is based on took place in a European cellar (not sure why this was altered). Maybe the captor was also overly naive in not checking the body in the carpet (?). Other than these plot details , 'Room' is not to be missed by appreciators of discerning films.