Haunting, powerful, beautifully done

Rating: 9/10 (2 June 2016)

Irish filmmaker Lenny Abrahamson has been making terrific films since 2004. "Adam & Paul", "Garage", "What Richard Did" are all excellent small films, marked by top rate acting and rich characters. With the oddly funny and surreal "Frank", Abrahamson finally started to get some attention here in the states.
"Room" may be his strongest film yet -- a vertigo inducing mix of thriller like tension and complex and sometimes disturbing character studies.
Again, he gets great performances; from the young and extremely talented Brie Larson, to great old pros like Joan Allen and William H. Macy, to a remarkable performance from a child, Jacob Tremblay, in a seriously difficult and demanding part.
I've seen a lot of films, but - even with no blood or gore, and little violence - this was so harrowing it was downright hard to watch at times. But in a way that never felt exploitive, but always in service of bigger themes and ideas. This is a film where knowing too much about the plot can work against the experience, but it's not giving away too much to say at the start we find a mother and child locked in a small room, having evidently been there for the boy's whole 5 years of life. They are scared, thin, holding on the best they can. We slowly come to understand the situation, at the same time getting a fascinating, and often chilling peek into what the world might seem like to a kid who has only lived in one small space.
The film is beautifully shot: the ultra-tight closeups, and wide lenses feeding the dizzying and nerve wracking sense of being trapped, and giving the "Room" (a character in itself) a plastic sense of shifting size and shape.
The score occasionally seemed a bit much to me - there's plenty of emotion here without needing the music to convince us - but those moments were few, and certainly not enough to seriously hurt the film.
It won't be everyone's cup of tea. It's dark, sad, complicated, scary and uncomfortable at times - although, as in life, lighter moments and hope find a way to break through. It's not light entertainment. But it's not like anything I've seen. It made me think, and has haunted me in the days since I've seen it. That's a lot for any film to accomplish.