



★ ★ ★ ★ ★





Jack (Jacob Tremblay) awakens on his fifth birthday in the ramshackle dwelling that is all he has ever known, all he has ever needed. Fuzzy faces in TV land, the bright glare of skylight and smiling eggshell snake are his entire world. His mother Joy (Brie Larson) decides the time has arrived to explain the world beyond Room, and how she hopes they can finally escape the box that has held her captive for seven long years.





Just reading back through that plot synopsis is a reminder that no amount of set up can possibly begin to describe what lies in store for viewers of Room, Lenny Abrahamson’s bid for the Best Picture Oscar. A description of a mother and son confined to a cramped prison doesn’t bring to mind a life-affirming love story, nor an exhaustive display of emotion from happiness to heartbreak, from terror to tenderness…but Room is all this and more.





The titular shed may constitute Jack’s entire experience of the world, but where we see limitation, he sees only expanse: simple details and tiny objects are plentiful stock for a legion of adventures. The cinematic universes of Marvel and DC have nothing on the sheer potential for storytelling that lies in every nook and cranny, and the searing reveal of the unlimited world beyond is suitably awe-inspiring.





Though ostensibly about music, Abrahamson’s previous feature, Frank, was never a whimsical riot, and to the same extent, Room is not a dark psychological thriller. Vision is gentle, meaningful (keep an eye out for a nod to Frank’s lonely carpet tuft), as is voice: both visuals and sound are shy but curiously so, peeking from behind corners looking for the passing of danger, the celebration of small victories. Too often do dramas attempt to show innocence through the eyes of age, but now the roles of youth and maturity are masterfully flipped head-over-heels.





The main viewport in this case is Jack himself, our constant companion. A lot has been said since the dawn of film concerning the many highs and lows, joys and struggles of child actors, but Tremblay makes it look effortless. Oscar snub? That’s putting it mildly. Emma Donoghue (writer of the original novel) has penned a script that Tremblay filters with the giggles and stomps of natural childish energy, but allows an additional shiver of artifice spawned from a life lived in unusual spaces.





Larson has always been an asset to any picture, even in those ill-befitting of her talent (see last year’s middling The Gambler remake) and under the spotlight of a leading role she fully demands your attention as guide, teacher and protector (all various ways of simply saying ‘mother’) as the story unfolds before the shared eyes of Jack and ourselves.





Supporting acts are few and far between, but should not be underestimated: Joan Allen lands a stirring role as Joy’s distraught mother, and William H. Macy packs a metric tonne of presence into a near-cameo as a father unwilling or unable to accept his newfound responsibility.





Strangely, the filmic comparison that comes to mind time and again upon further reflection is Alex Garland’s terrific sci-fi ménage à trois Ex Machina. Both focus upon a young-minded prisoner forever curious to discover an exterior reality, melded with a recognisable but askance relationship between creator and legacy.



