Emma Donoghue's best-selling 2010 novel "Room" was told entirely from the perspective of a five-year-old boy—the offspring of a young mother and her longtime abductor—and this unique point-of-view has been admirably retained for director Lenny Abrahamson's (2014's "Frank") tough, compassionate feature adaptation. The film, also written by Donoghue, focuses on the two central characters in its story rather than the crime they have been victims of, placing the power back in their hands after it has been stripped from them for so long. Finding a way out of their unthinkable situation, however, will not be a quick-fix solution to their problems. This, above all, is where the sublimely acted "Room" deepens and provokes most considerably.
When Joy Newsome (Brie Larson) was 17, she was snatched off her neighborhood street while trying to help a man look for his supposedly lost dog. Seven years later, her life—and that of her son, Jack (Jacob Tremblay)—is confined to the garden shed in Old Nick's (Sean Bridgers) backyard, their only glimpse of the outside world coming from a small skylight. Jack has known nothing other than the four walls surrounding him, a place he simply calls "room"—it is where he eats, watches television, and sleeps in the closet on nights when Old Nick drops by to visit his mom. Because Jack was so young, Joy chose to raise him to believe everything in room was real, while everything beyond it, including what was on the TV, was fantasy. Now that he has just turned five, she decides it is not only time for him to know the truth, but also to have a chance at a normal childhood before it is too late. What she doesn't expect is how difficult it will be for her to acclimate to a life that has kept on moving in the formative adult years she has been held in captivity.
See Dustin Putman, TheFilmFile.com. for full review
