Review of Room (2015) by Tr J — 15 Mar 2016

I have somewhat mixed emotions about the film and the lead performance by Brie Larson. The captivity seems less psychologically harsh than I think it should come across, partly because (spoiler alert, to some extent) we don't see up-close the nightly raping of the captive woman--instead, a kind of softened and removed sense of it as her son experiences it when closed in a closet.

I think this is lamentable distancing from the captive's ongoing torture and torment. I don't know whether this corresponds to the book on which the film is based, but I found it troubling that we're not subjected to more of that routinized horror of the woman's existence.

The pace is a bit slow during the scenes in a claustrophobic shed where the mother and son are held, then becomes more intense and jagged after they escape. The struggle for the mother and son to adjust to freedom is more gripping, and helps establish more of an emotional grounding.

Brie Larson's performance is generally good, but not outstanding as I expected. Other performances vary from strong to artificial. The film deserves to be seen but is not the powerful tale it could have been.