2015's best!

Rating: 10/10 (6 February 2016)

When I first heard the tiny voices of a five year old child describing how he/she (Sex wasn't specified at the time) has made a connection to every object in a shabby "Room", I opined in my mind that maybe it was a cheap ploy to draw out pity from the unsuspecting audience, who were totally unaware what they were in for. But without enough information on the context in which the child's words were conjured up, blended with the fact that the film was within a time frame of 5 minutes, I resolved to continue. And for the remaining 90 minutes I was left astounded because I had never seen a film that is so "tortuous" and "touching" at the same time-each "T's" given their own half and ground work to manifest, shine and totally connect with the audience in ripples.
It all starts in a room-claustrophobic it is: a room that serves as a "world" to 5 year old jack and his Ma/Mum (played by Brie Larson). Immediately, it becomes visible to the audience that the duo are inhabiting in a poverty stricken situation, especially when you hear ma telling 5 year old Jack that the vitamin he is currently taking is his last or even when she tries to kill a rat, which is normal but with a discomfited explanation: telling jack that "It might steal our food". Enough bases are laid to show how deprived they are living with little exposition for their living conditions. Lo and behold, while concerned with their state of affairs, there is a high tendency to forget that all this takes place in just a "Room". No movement is shown on how they move into other quarters, which sort of leaves the viewer in a state of guesses. Is Ma a prostitute- considering that she locks Jack in the closet when a male visitor comes around? Or Ma might be living on government support while trying to maintain her crack addiction (far-fetched though). My guess was the first question and the most logical for anyone to conjecture. But it also goes to show how the hush-hush of the plot forces one to reason otherwise.
A water closet without a lid, virtually no windows except the small glass sun-light entry at the roof with a lavatory, bed and a bathtub-all in one small space-a "Room"! The most intense moments in the film come with how Jack views his environs. It is his world. He was born in it-very in touch with the virtually non-existent happenings that take place. Things like cars, trees, the sky and even other humans are all abstract. At first sight, I thought Jack was a girl because of the long hair, but given the circumstances, one would understand why that came to be. I remember that scene where Ma tells him that there is a whole other world out there and not a planet like she had previously told him-his feedback was with disgust-vocally and vehemently hostile to Ma's words. Even when he goes out of "Room"-the yearning to go back guides his every being, how he reacts to every touch and fails to connect. Jack is played by Jacob Tremplay in one of the most pitiful as well as endearing performance from a child taken from his small confines and thrust into the world-finding it hard to fine-tune into the larger- than-"Room" earth. But his recovery is visually soothing-done in a step by step manner though with a little touch of let's-do-it-for- convenience-sake.
It was a kidnap by a middle aged man that put Ma and Jack in the "Room". Only he knows the code to the room. He kidnapped Ma when she was 17, raped her and Jack was the product. Ma waited until Jack was 5 before she used him to find freedom. The scenes leading up to their escape no matter how valiant swings back and forth between borderline irresponsibility of a mother and last minute attempts at freedom-literally. Unfortunately for Ma, it takes Jack a little while to understand why Ma rolls him up in a rug or why she places a hot rag on his head so he can pretend sick. And in the process convince the captor to take him outside-a means by which Jack escapes. Brie Larson has played a mother before. See the film (Train wreck), in which she played Amy's sister: 2015's best romantic comedy yet! That protector/guardian/Mother role is a comfort zone for her; she plays it as if it is a second skin. But here, her work is laden with a puddle of grief and she lives up to the billing wedged between a downcast figure who reserves strength and optimism and a woman who struggles in the aftermath. The scenes after her character is rescued shows how much she is in touch with her sorrowful side, which is aided by the poignant feel of the film's score.
"Room" is a harrowing experience. 2015's best-----yet! From my own perspective, this is the film to beat. Last year (2014), it was the dark, brooding, righteously-themed business drama: A Most Violent Year, but this year (2015) presents a melancholic-esque claustrophobe: "Room". It's usually small scale, little budget, independent, non-franchise films like this that makes the most sense-telling a story that reaches out to the heart and apprehension of its audience. I would bear false witness if I said it wasn't distressing-it is! The perturbing narrative claws at the gorge of human consciousness, and replicates itself there like a cell undergoing meiosis-it spreads and plants, adhering, which leaves the viewer to imagine him/herself in the same gloomy hopeless picture of a woman who has lived in a particular room for 7 years-no sun, no air, no human contact. This is the kind of film that will uplift the mood of prisoners after seeing it-who will in turn thank their stars for their plight-at least they get to feel the sunlight and interact with humans.