2015 Best Picture nominee
Rating: 14/20
Plot: A kidnapped woman and her son escape their imprisonment in a shed and then try to adapt to the world outside their room. Sorry, room. The world outside room. For some reason, the writers of this don't like article adjectives.
My 14/20 might be generous, and it's probably only because of how impressed I was--for the most part--with the performance of Jacob Tremblay. The movie rests on his shoulders even though Brie Larson won the Best Actress Academy Award for her performance as his mom. This is a story told from his point of view. There are perspective shots where you're seeing first [the] room through his eyes and later a world he's never known through those same eyes. You could never expect a performance by a 9 or 10 year old to be perfect, and there are some warts here. However, Tremblay manages to bring this character to life about as well an actor can bring a character to life.
A little of the seeing-the-story-through-the-little-kid's-eyes shtick goes a long way, and eventually, the movie just kind of runs out of steam. There are still emotional moments--mostly very bleak ones--but once the movie's over, it's just hard to figure out what you were supposed to get from the thing. I kept thinking there was some sort of postpartum depression subtext, but I think I was probably way off. This appears to be completely straightforward, almost annoyingly straightforward, and although it touches on post-traumatic relationships, the role of the media in stories like this, and the persistence of children's innocence in an increasingly horrifying world, it never really gives you a lot to grab onto. It just starts to feel empty after a while, like it's there just for entertainment value when it should be there for something else. Then, William H. Macy is stumbling into the picture, and things just feel like a very dark offering from the Hallmark Movie Channel.
This reminded me--for some reason--of the movie Clean, Shaven. That, too, was a movie that ultimately felt a little empty.
3 comments:
About how I felt about this one. The movie gets very weak, once the whole family dynamic thing happens. The William H. Macy scenes were really stilted and poorly written. Its an alright movie, but not one that I would ever need to see again. A 13 for me.
You're right that it didn't hold much water after the escape. But the performance of that boy and Larson alone held this movie to a 15 for me. I saw so many quintessential 5 yr old moments and parent-to-5 yr old moments that I got choked up seeing myself and my children in this picture. I really felt like it nailed those characters and the relationship.
What held the rest of the movie together for me wasn't really the surface level plot, but the experience of the kid. With the exception of the TV interview, nothing really fruitful comes from the rest of the plot (the hospital, the return home, the grandparent dynamic). What I couldn't take my focus off of was the boy's perspective. Every time a man entered the scene, he clammed up. I really empathized after a while thinking how personable I'd want to be naturally, yet I'd only be unintentionally making it worse. The shots from Jack's POV and how blurry the world was (either from malnutrition or the fact that he just needed glasses at this age); it added to the intimidation of his new world, and I felt it. Finally, by the end when he wanted to go back and see "Room" again. I mean, it echoed throughout the rest of the movie and drove home the idea of "home" -- of security. The dichotomy of the innocence of the boy and him witnessing so much horror paired with his want to see "Room" again...I found myself nodding my head at the screen. He just didn't know any better and he's dealing with it from such an innocent perspective. Add that idea with the ending, and it just left me impressed with the overall story. That bookending (him telling the items in Room goodnight, and then telling the items in Room goodbye)...whew, it was powerful.
I really wish we could have seen some retribution for the kidnapper/rapist, but that kind of perfect closure is not how the world works...And, yes, the William H Macy stuff felt like extra scenes. There was some unnecessary drama thrown it to hit a run-time, I'm sure. But overall, it all boils down to the writer giving such great characters to work with, the director giving us that initial suspense to hook us, and those actors to really get the empathy from the viewer...17/20
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You make some good points about what's really good about this movie. The POV shots did elevate it, and I really thought the kid was good. I don't remember the bookending with the goodnight/goodbye, and to tell you the truth, I'm not even sure I made that connection when I saw the movie. I think I was kind of annoyed at the Macy stuff and probably distracted.
This seems like the sort of thing my wife would want to see, so maybe I'll watch it again sometime.
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