A claustrophobic drama

Rating: 9/10 (12 March 2017)

Five year old Jack lives with his mother, Joy, in Room; as far as he is aware there is no outside; Room is all there is. The fact is Joy was abducted seven years previously, when she was seventeen and has been locked in a shed by a captor she has dubbed 'Old Nick' who is of course Jack's father. One day Joy decides it is time to tell Jack the truth about the world and plot their escape. She comes up with a plan and manages to get Jack out and not long afterwards she is free too this isn't the end of their story though; it is merely the first day of the rest of their lives. Jack must come to terms with the vastness of the world and all the new things he sees and Joy must deal with changes that happened while she was in Room; most notably the fact that her parents split soon after her abduction and her father can't bring himself to even look at Jack.
This was a really gripping film that turned out to be quite different to what I'd expected. I had assumed the whole film would be similar to the first half with perhaps a few more escape attempts followed by a happy ending where they get free and we see 'Old Nick' brought to justice. In fact they are free around the half way point and while we are told that Nick has been arrested we don't see him again. Instead the second half of the film is all about coming to terms with what happened; or in the case of Joy's father being unable to do so. The room they are held in gives a feel of claustrophobia to such an extent that the world outside suddenly feels huge to the viewer as well as the characters. Brie Larson gave a fantastic performance as Joy; it isn't surprising that she got an Oscar for it. Likewise young Jacob Tremblay was great as Jack; he really made the viewer believe that his character hadn't seen anything of the outside world before. The escape scenes were particularly tense as for some time we had no idea what was happening to Joy; we just knew that 'Old Nick' knew she had helped Jack escape and she was shill his captive. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to anybody looking for something a little different with an emotional intensity.