Emotional and Dark, Depressing yet Uplifting

Rating: 10/10 (26 January 2016)

Simply put, "Room" is an emotional film. And it seems as though half the time you do not even know what you're feeling. Seamlessly the film manages to portray happiness in a tragic way, depressingly dark situations yet present some optimism and make you feel genuinely scared and/or worried about its fictional characters. Room is emotional in a very real sense; it's not just another movie where a romance falls apart, or where a loved one gets a terminal illness and it doesn't tug on your heart strings with cheap bullshit. Room doesn't try to trick you into feeling things, its realistic tone and grim story is enough. Not to make light of the cinematography, music or any of anything else which made the film, these are all good too, however we are really in this one for the writing and acting; the story and characters.
The film follows its protagonists as they live their day to day lives trapped inside a small dirty room with no way out. Locked in by a nameless man that they call 'Old Nick,' The characters are a mother and son 'Jack,' 'Ma' has been inside this room for seven years and her son has never experienced anything beyond the room in his life. For around half of the movie we stay in the room with these characters, we as an audience never leave the room until the characters do. Personally I was beginning to feel the claustrophobia myself, the movie makes you feel as trapped as the characters are. The room feels hopeless as it does small and the atmosphere is actually quite haunting.
Now though, that Jack is five years old, Ma believes that it's now time and that he is finally old enough to help her make their escape. Through a series of events, the two do make it out of the room, however we are still only about half way through the film as we follow their lives after leaving 'room.'
The films point of no return; leaving 'room' is both scary and cheerful for both us and the characters in the film. The juxtaposition of being stuck in the room and the freedoms of such an open and unknown world is mind blowing. Yet, before they leave and it is uncertain whether they will succeed or not, you almost don't want them to try. Jack pleads his mother to wait till he is six years old and this is a terrifying theme throughout the film; Comfort and security over freedom. Jack's life and world may have been horrible, however the thought of leaving was frightening and almost made no sense to Jack.
The movie manages to portray a horrible situation without feeling like a cheap horror movie, this is to be taken seriously and manages to portray despicable acts and conditions of the characters, without reverting to gross out moments or cartoonish dark villains. The villain of the film, is definitely disgusting and hateable, but ultimately is not the point of the film. The maturity of the film dealing with a sickening character and subject is appreciated. Another running theme of this film was the experience – or really inexperience of five-year-old Jack. He'd never known anything beyond this one room his entire life, basically; 'room' was his world. And this is such an interesting concept to me. Jack's concepts of fiction and reality blur and at such an age he is vulnerable to information. It's important to learn the truth however almost incomprehensible due to his extremely limited knowledge.
Possibly my favourite shot of the film, has Jack creating shadows with his hands in the partial sunlight that comes through via sunlight. This shot has obvious relation to 'The Allegory of the Cave' philosophical theory. Put simply, if a caveman never leaves his cave, and all he ever sees are shadows, this is what he believes in, this becomes his reality. And the same goes for the child in the film. 'Room' is all he knows, and beyond stories he's told or what he sees on their television, Jack's sense of reality is inaccurate. He knows about animals such as dogs and cats, he knows about grass and trees and he knows about general bits of information, however due to his isolation he cannot separate reality from fiction and therefore will not know which things are real and which are not. A dragon for example is as real or fake as a dog in his mind.
The themes throughout the film and the emotion that these themes bring are all portrayed through the actors; who all did a fine job, but the performance that really stood out was child actor Jacob Tremblay as Jack. Children are often not the best actors, they're still young; still learning, but this kid is ahead of his time, ahead of his age really. For such a thematically complex film as well as a mature and grim one, Tremblay did an amazing job making me believe in his character, as well as his collaboration with Brie Larson as mother and son, their relationship is strong and convincing.
The film gave me chills when it needed to in moments of pure intensity the beautiful moments were made that much nicer in comparison to the dreary and depressing ones. It even gave me a new perspective on the world and the way we might look at it. What if we are all experiencing some version of Jack and Ma's 'room?' But, this is just a movie review, I don't want to get too philosophical.
"Room" is saddening yet uplifting. It may be hard to watch for some yet I'd think also hard to stop watching, and overall the film has the ability to change ones' perspective. "Room" is shocking, yet beautiful and most of all unforgettable. This is Drama at its' best. 10/10