Review of Room (2015) by Manal S — 12 Apr 2016

A young woman is abducted by a middle-aged man who goes by the name Old Nick and is imprisoned in his backyard shed for six years during which she gives birth to a kid who thinks that the room he grew up in with his mother is the entire universe. But we see none of this. The film opens with the two main characters, Jack (the five-year-old boy brilliantly played by Jacob Tremblay) and his mother (played by the talented Brie Larson) going about their everyday life in the room - sleeping, eating, exercising, playing, reading... etc. with occasional visits from the mysterious Old Nick. Upon Jack's fifth birthday, the mother decides that it is about time to get them both out of the room.

I won't go into the details of the extremely bold scheme and the mother-son heart-wrenching argument scenes, but they finally do it and they make it out of their prison - a crucial moment that, you might think, will bring about the two characters' happily ever after. However, Room is not a happily ever after story; it is a story about what happens after the happy ending - a story about transitions. The film is divided exactly into two halves: inside and outside the room, two places that are equally confining for Jack and his mother. In the first part of the film when we are trapped inside with the two, we could feel the sense of confinement in mother's eyes but Jack's giggles and jumping around make us feel that the small room is as big as a playground. When we leave the room - an overwhelming moment for both of them - the room's concrete walls are replaced by psychological confinement materialized through personal disappointments and people's judgments.

The two main characters are tied by blood but differ drastically in the way they perceive the universe. For the mother, the room is the strange unfamiliar grounds; whereas for Jack, the room is the only universe he has ever known and the outside world is the unfamiliar, intimidating terrain. Despite the change of perspective, the bond mother and Jack share helps them become stronger, reach out to each other and overcome the difficulty of transition. Regardless of the melodramatic undertones, the story shows that it doesn't matter on which side of the wall you're standing because the only walls there are are the ones we build around ourselves and around other people, and that love is the only power that can overcome those walls.

The natural chemistry between Larson and Tremblay is phenomenal. Period.