When making a world out of a room seems easier than making room in the world...

Rating: 9/10 (28 February 2016)

Ever since I've been following the Award season, I was wondering what was exactly about this 'Jacob Tremblay' kid. I had never heard about him, but the more awards nominations he got, the more pictures of "Room" I was discovering, the more intriguing that skinny pale-looking child with unusually long hair was, especially that movie snapshot of his stunned look crossing as you could tell he was witnessing something of hypnotic beauty.
First, I thought Tremblay was portraying some kind of autistic kid, then the story of a mother and her child trapped in a room made me expect a movie about confinement, and the ability of creating a world out of a horrible situation. And the kid looked strange enough to make me believe that he was victim of a condition forcing him to be isolated. Lenny Abrahamson's "Room" was the kind of film that is surrounded by an aura of mystery, but that alone wouldn't have been enough without the whole awards-buzz, so like many others, I saw it to see what was good about it.
At first, I was disrupted by the whole voice-over narration, I wasn't really ready for some abstraction à la "Tree of Life", and I wished the kid wouldn't be too strange, even within the story's strangeness. But doubts immediately vanished, Jack was a normal kid who loved to play, to please his mother Joy, played by Brie Larson, to be told that he's grown up, to write, to draw, except that everything he does, and been doing since he was born, took place in that small shed, whose only door to the world is a skylight. And as the story goes, we get the circumstances of their presence there, especially when there's a sort of figure named Old Nick who's the only known outsider.
The film echoes many news items about women or kids who've been abducted for years and years, being raped and having children with their own captor, the kind of stories that make you wonder how can anyone survive from such conditions. It's the mark of great films not to answer questions directly but to make you answering them on your own. Jack, unlike Joy, doesn't know what he missed and the whole world, as far as he's concerned is the room and whatever is in the room is real. A mouse is real, a spoon or a kitchen sink or a wardrobe are called by 'mister' or 'mrs' but whatever appears in that box named TV is made of pictures and can't count as real. And as far as humanity goes, there's him, his mother and Old Nick, played by Sean Bridgers.
Jack can't be unhappy or his unhappiness is limited to his world. However, his mother spent only 7 years of her life there; she not only knows what she's missing but she knows damn well what Jack is missing. And if Jacob Tremblay deserves the praise for his performance, there's something in Larson's acting that cuts straight to the heart. She is devastated but she must hide it,, the presence of Jack is the only thing that keeps her alive, otherwise, she would have killed herself. Jack is her skylight. But there comes a point where enough is enough, and for his own good, she can't let Jack drown in a fantasy-world that might eventually destroy him. This is a story of a mother's responsibility, and she's got to stop pretending and get her son out of there.
She first thinks of faking illness so Nick can take Jack to the hospital but instead of that, Nick goes outside to buy antibiotics. She then teaches Jack how to play dead, so she can wraps him under a carpet and ask Nick to 'bury' him, this is where Jack must free himself. They say even a frail mother can increase tenfold her strength if her child is in danger, the same goes when Nick wants to check the body. Joy learned how to fake emotions, but now, she has to make it 'Oscar-worthy' so that Nick is convinced not only to take the body but not to bury him in the garden and take him on his truck. Joy keeps her head on the carpet not to let anything betray her nervousness, and the plan works. I guess there's a justice if Larson wins the Oscar if only for that scene where she gave her best acting in order to forever stop acting after that, the climax of her room years of pretension.
And a lesser film would have made it the real 'climax', and make "Room" a sort of mother-and-son version of "Life is Beautiful" with a heart-warming slow-motion reunion at the end, people crying and some cheerful happy-ending music but "Room" is respectful enough to our intelligence not to tell us that everything will go perfectly right after such an experience. The second act consists on Joy and Jack coping with their trauma, and building new relationship with family members who's either strangers or estranged to their world. "Room" isn't about people stuck in a room during seven years, but stuck in the world after such experience, and this time, it's harder for Jack.
Indeed, I finally saw what was beyond that picture, Jack had a stunned 'where am I?' born-baby look, with his vision blurred because of the years spent in obscurity, he was reborn, but life will go very fast for him. One day, he'll ask his grandmother (Joan Allen) to cut his hair (a vivid symbol of "Room" days, his Samson-like 'strength' as Joy told him) and this action ironically makes him even stronger, and is a positive signal for Joy. Then they visit the room again and Jack realizes how small it was, just as when we visit a childhood place. He didn't grow much physically after the "Room" but he could finally enjoy life now that he discovered how wonderfully big it was.