Welcome To The World

Rating: 10/10 (29 April 2016)

How anyone could watch "ROOM" and not be touched in some way is beyond my comprehension. It is by far one of the most amazing films that I saw to be released this past year and one that takes your emotions on a roller-coaster ride that continues even after the credits roll. I sat watching the movie absorbed in the tale it had to tell, angry at times, concerned at others and walking away with a love of life that few films can inspire these days.
Most people will know the basic set up of "ROOM" prior to watching it. Based on the novel by Emma Donoghue it tells the story of Ma (Brie Larson) and Jack (Jacob Trembly) who are together in the single setting of a room. Deeper than that is the realization that Ma was kidnapped and held hostage here giving birth to Jack during the years of her captivity. Now the two of them remain prisoners of the rarely seen Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), the man who kidnapped Ma years ago and who abuses her sexually when the mood strikes.
For the better part of 40 minutes the movie focuses on how Ma and Jack live together. The movie begins with his 5th birthday and Ma deciding that she needs to find a way to get out or at least get Jack out so he can live a normal life. That a movie can hold your interest in a single setting, a room, without letting go is a testament to how good this movie is.
**Spoiler Alert** So if that's all you want to know stop reading now. What happens after those first 40 minutes are so are the most amazing parts. Their escape plan works and Jack finds himself in the world outside. For 5 years the only world he has known was room, an 11x11 room with a skylight in the ceiling. Now he finds the entire outside world before him and is dumbstruck with all that he must absorb before he can escape Old Nick. But escape he does and eventually is reunited with Ma.
And here the story goes on a whole different track. The movie now focuses on how not just Jack but how Ma must deal with adapting to the real world as well. While everyone realizes that Jack must learn how to cope with this outside world few comprehend how Ma, 17 when she was abducted, must also relearn what the world is like. She must come to grips with how no one found her. She must deal with how the world looks at Jack, the child of an abductor. She must learn to live with being unable to escape so long ago and it all takes its toll.
We witness the world through Jack's eyes most of the time, learning about this new world. He learns that there are many people in this world, including his grandparents. Grandma (Joan Allen) and grandpa (William H. Macy) are now divorced and grandma lives with Leo (Tom McCamus). Shy and withdrawn he must learn to develop trust with them, learn what the world is like and deal with his mother trying to cope as well.
The movie grips you by the throat early on and rarely let's go as it progresses from start to finish. The emotional roller-coaster ride I spoke of has you in fear of what will happen to Ma and Jack. It will have you sad watching the terrors that they go through and considering what it must be like to have been held a captive for years. It will encourage anger as you consider what this monster Old Nick has done to the lives of all he touched, his victim and her friends and family. And it will leave you filled with a sense of joy at discovering through the eyes of young Jack exactly what this world has to offer.
Larson won the Academy Award this year for best actress and deservedly so. Her performance here is amazing to watch. She moves from strong protector to little girl once again and her character feels she isn't the mother she should be when Jack lets her know that she is. What stuns me is that Trembly, even though he is so young, wasn't nominated at least for supporting actor. His performance is something one would never expect from a child.
I'll say again that I can find no way that anyone who watches this film will not be touched in some way. Watching it at home will make it much easier on viewers as those who might cry won't have to worry about who sees them at different times in the film. If the movie doesn't touch you then you have no soul. I now have to see "SPOTLIGHT", the winner for best picture Oscar, just to see if it was better than this movie. Somehow I doubt that it will be but I will be content in knowing that this film was one of the most deserving of the nominations for that title.