Review of Room (2015) by John M — 05 Aug 2016

The best of the 2015 Best Picture nominees. So this is about a mother (Brie Larson) and her son (Jacob Tremblay) in a room. There's very little interaction with the outside world. What exactly is going on here? When I say you should watch a film cold, this movie is exactly the reason why the saying exists.

Seriously, I think the plot synopsis on IMDb gives away way too much, and a lot of what makes this movie so bonafide fantastic is in the intrigue in the setup. The way this film presents its story and the manner in which the story unravels is some of the best story-telling of they year, in this writer's humble opinion.

I will, of course, avoid spoilers, but I fully support you halting the reading of this immediately so you can go and take this movie in: it really is that good, and I recommend it to all. Now Brie Larson has been turning in some quality work for quite some time now.

I have yet to see it, but people rave about Short Term 12, and she's been having commercial success as well, with small roles in Trainwreck and in one of my personal favorites Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

She is nothing short of breathtaking with the performance she delivers here, but if she didn't have somebody to play off of, her job would have been so much more difficult. The kid they got for this, Jacob Tremblay, is also equally amazing.

It's so rare to see a child pull off a role this well, and he is right on the same level as Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense in terms of quality. Room is a movie that is set apart by its script and performances.

There's not a whole lot to work with as far as the set goes, and it is, for all intents and purposes, a bottle movie. You know there has to be a good reason behind all this, and once it gets there, everything starts to click, and you can't wait to see how it will play out.

The level of drama this reaches is high, and there is fascination behind the psychology of it all; how to explain everything that has transpired to a little kid is not a task anybody would desire, and to watch Brie Larson deliver emotionally charged monologue after emotionally charged monologue is truly a sight to behold.

I'm going to wrap this up so as to avoid spoilers: please go watch this movie.