Room - Not the Story That I Was Expecting, But the One That This Film Deserved

Rating: 9/10 (18 January 2016)

Room completely blew all of my initial expectations away with a very empathetic and human story with phenomenal performances from its two leads, as well as an incredible screenplay and fantastic direction.
Going into Room as someone who didn't read the book that this film was based on, I was expecting a mystery/thriller that centered around the escape/finding of the mom and son that the film focuses on. Instead, what I got was a very emotional, and very human look at the relationship between a mother and her son, as well as how these two are damaged by what they've experienced within a very confined space, and how they recover from and cope with said damage. Emma Donoghue, who wrote the book that this film is based on, did a beautiful job writing the screenplay, and part of that is because these characters she created felt like real people with real problems that pretty much anybody can relate to no matter who they are.
However, the characters wouldn't have been so realistic if it wasn't for the actors who play them. Brie Larson is an absolute revelation, and is, in my opinion, the front-runner for the Best Actress Oscar this February. I've always been a fan of her's, from her commercial work in films like Trainwreck, 21 Jump Street, or Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, to her smaller work in films like Short Term 12 or Don Jon. Her performance in Room is some of the absolute best work I've ever seen from her, and this is because she portrays the shock and stress of returning to a world that's been snatched away from you for seven years so brilliantly. She captures the heartbreak, and sadness, and anger of this sobering situation perfectly, and it shows it the incredible transformation her character undergoes throughout the film.
As great as Larson is in this film though, it would be unfair to overlook her son played by Jacob Tremblay, who is as important as Larson is, possibly even more. This is because Jack is the character that the audience sees the film through; he's the person that guides us all through the events that take place. And that is absolutely fascinating to me, because essentially Jack is experiencing the world for the first time ever. So because of this, he is filled with wonder about this new world, especially in a fantastic scene involving him laying in the bed of a truck looking at the sky, and the score is just overwhelming the entire scene with how loud it is. And that's the other thing about him; he's overwhelmed and apprehensive about what the world holds, but he doesn't always understand why. And as an audience member, we're able to piece extra bits of the story together without being told, but instead shown what things are like. When you're able to understand something without having to explain it, that's great storytelling, and it makes the character of Jack one of the most fascinating of the entire year.
This film wouldn't be what it was without its director, Lenny Abrahamson. I've heard that Abrahamson took a lot of inspiration from learning how to raise a family for directing this film, and it really shows in every scene that he directs. You really get the sense that this was a film that was made with care, and love, and not just towards the respect that the book and its characters deserve, but in crafting something that felt genuine, that felt relatable to anyone who experienced growing up or raising their child. It feels like the director just wanted to tell a good, relatable story with the material that he was given, and he did just that.
Room is a movie that really affected me. I'm notorious for literally never crying in movies, but in Room, I cried for literally the entire second half of the film. And that's because the characters of Ma and Jack, what they go through, and particularly how this affects other people that Ma knew before being taken away from the world she once lived in, felt so real to me; I actually believed that these events actually happened. And when a film does that to me, it's film that I know that I'll be revisiting time and time again, and Room is exactly that kind of movie.
If I had seen this before the end of 2015, it would've been my favorite movie of the entire year. Without a doubt.