9.5/10. There are times when I feel jaded as a viewer. When it seems like despite the breadth of films out there, that I know most of the tricks, to where while I can appreciate a film's achievements in sort of a detached way, when I can even be engaged and invested in something, it doesn't necessarily reach me in the way that movies did when I first started watching them. The scope of appreciation has widened, but the emotional resonance feels muted, because I can't help but see the strings.

And then a film like Room comes along.

And Jack sees the expanse of sky for the first time. And Joy hugs her parents after not seeing them for seven years. And Robert can't even look at his grandson. And Nancy tells her daughter that she's not the only one whose life was destroyed. And Joy tells her mother that if she hadn't been taught to be nice, she might never have gone with Nick. And there's a supreme, heartbreaking look of guilt on her face when a reporter asks if she should have given her son up while in captivity. And Jack walks in on his mother's suicide attempt. And Nancy hears her grandson say "I love you." And Jack sees a real live dog, and makes a real live friend, and cuts his hair to give his mother his strength.

And I wince and I laugh and I cry and I gasp at this beautiful, devastating, intimate, life-affirming film. This is why we make movies. I love popcorn films, with the fights and flashes and epic feel, and I love the big dramas, with their scope and their sense of grandness and the talent on display, and I love those classic film comedies that mix the absurd and the irreverent and the memorable into a single hilarious package. But the films like Room simultaneously so small and so personal, yet so powerful and affecting, have a special place. These are, as Robert Ebert once put it, the empathy machine that is film working at peak efficiency, taking us into the lives of people who have suffered and been unfathomably wronged, and carries us with them as they carve out a way forward.

I didn't know I wanted a film that feels like a cross between Oldboy, Life Is Beautiful, and Boyhood, and yet the elements Room shares with each--the sense of isolation, the loving way in which a parent tries to distract their child from a continuing tragedy, the slice-of-life, impressionistic depiction of a young boy's innocence--come together to form something absolutely tremendous.

That last facet of the film, the fact that it filters the entire experience through young Jack's eyes, is a stroke of brilliance. There's a matter of factness, a certain directness or even blitheness to the way children experience the world. Using Jack as the lens through which Room tells its story renders those events not only realer, but plainer, imbuing them with the unvarnished perception of childhood. The way the film is able to get into Jack's head, to allow the audience to view these horrors and steps to recovery through his eyes, is its greatest strength and most impressive achievement.

By the same token, Brie Larson as Joy deserves all the accolades she's received for her performance here. While still a prisoner, she carries herself with such an air of both utter resignation and quiet resolve, someone who's been beaten into submission but carries on with whatever she has left. And once she returns home, the guilt that consumes her, the anger that she has for the world that kept turning without her, are palpable in every moment without fading into overwroughtness.

The film can essentially be divided into those two halves. The first is the story of Jack and Joy in Room, of the way that Joy makes unbearable circumstances livable for her son, the way that she copes and shields Jack from the horror around him, and how Jack strains and struggles to understand the idea of the world beyond those four walls, to where he can, eventually, help the two of them escape. The second half is far less intense, but still endlessly intriguing and affecting. It's a quiet domestic story about how people recover from that sort of trauma, both Joy who feels the opposite of survivor's guilt and second guesses herself, and Jack who is exposed to a big scary world, the depth and breadth of which is entirely alien to him.

But throughout both halves, there is such a pure emotional truth in each moment, from the simple joys that Jack enjoys within the home he doesn't realize is a prison, to his anger and resistance at having that fantasy shattered, to Joy's dispirited but resolute attempts to keep him happy and healthy, to the realistic, painful difficulties parents and children face when rebuilding a family seven years after a tragedy, to the wonder and fear a small boy has for what lies beyond the garden gate, and the unmitigated joy at every step taken toward some cobbled-together normalcy. Room is a beautiful, heart-wrenching, intensely personal film, that takes an unflinching yet uplifting look at how people cope and come back from the worst that our world has to offer.

Considering all the factors in play, this movie was EXTREMELY average. Everyone seems to be praising this movie on it's merit which begs me to ask, what did it do well? The acting was alright at best, with Brie Larson being the best. But again, being the best in an ok pile isn't saying much. The child actor was bearable at times, but let me say that a good child performance does not mean a good adult one. The score was anything but spectacular, with it being pretty cringey at times.

The movie relied solely on the audience to create an emotional impact with the character or the movie doing anything to prove why you should actually care about whats happening. The cinematography was not that good, with a variety of shots feeling bland at best. As well as this, I noticed many continuity and audio mistakes, not necessarily making this movie a technical masterpiece.

The premise should be really effective, but it just isn't really. I think its because the characters are nowhere near as developed as they should be, so every event that should make you cry (and believe me, there are many) just feels like emotional manipulation. Some of the dialogue is a little too on the nose as well. I think if the movie were given some time to breathe and if the direction was done with a slighter hand (the director needs a new cinematographer badly) with a more subtle script the story could have lead to a great movie, but as it stands it's mostly a missed opportunity.

Overall, this movie was extremely underwhelming.

Jacob Tremblay is really good in this curious, and slightly claustrophobic, tale of a young lad "Jack" who lives with his doting "Ma" (Brie Larson). Nothing odd about that, you might think - well, except for the fact that thus far in his short life, "Jack" has never actually left the room in which he lives. He eats there, plays there, sleeps there - he knows nowhere else. As he ages though, he begins to get itchy feet and his mother finds it more and more difficult to contain his enthusiasm for finding out what is going on outside. What also emerges from their scenario is that "Ma" herself is not exactly free to move about. She was taken by "Nick" (Sean Bridgers) many years earlier and it soon becomes clear that he is likely the father of the boy she is so desperate to protect. Are they better off indoors or seeking freedom? Well, she decides that the latter offers them a better chance of happiness (and quite possibly sanity, too) - but the execution of that plan is not without risk! Lenny Abrahamson directs this with quite a bit of subtlety. He allows the audience to become immersed in the relationship between the two principals; he lets them do the talking and as the narrative unravels we realise that the story is anything but what we may have expected at the start. There is a palpable chemistry between the confident Tremblay and his more experienced co-star, and she complements that well. This is a nuanced and engaging tale offering us plenty of parallels of modern life - good and bad; with a dialogue that is both poignant and frequently heartfelt too. Certainly, it was nothing at all like I was expecting and it's stimulating and enjoyable in equal measure. Well worth a watch.

"I want a different story!"

That line and the scene it's taken from is quintessential to what this movie is about — at least to me.

To me, this is so much **not** about being abducted and trapped in a room but about the apparent pointlessness of being, about coming to terms with it and understanding and accepting that any meaning that is to be found, comes from within ourselves. It's also about moving on, about love and parenthood ("Can I?" "There's nothing left."), and just... Well, humanity and love.

It reminds me of the beautiful relationship between father and son in The Road (the book — I don't remember if the movie conveys this relationship very well, but I do remember the beauty of it in the book). The relationship between mother and son in this movie is heartbreakingly beautiful as well.

Also, I don't remember the last time I've seen a child perform this well in a movie. I have a feeling I've seen better, but I can't remember having seen better.

I thought this would be a horror movie (I don't read synopsises or reviews or watch trailers before watching a movie), instead I was moved to tears again and again. But **not** disappointed.

Brilliant. Watch it.

> Discovering a whole new world beyond the 4 walls.

We all know the German folk tale 'Rupanzel', and this is a similar kind with entirely different motive. All the above it is not a fairy tale set in the medieval period, but inspired by many real events of the present era. A couple of years ago I saw a German movie called '3096 Days' based on the true story. When I heard of this movie is being made, at first obviously I remembered that title, but after seeing the poster alone convinced me not the same. Automatically the expectations rose, and now it's got the 4 Oscars nominees, including the best motion picture.

The both halves of the movie were entirely different from each other like the two sets of story, but the core of the theme remains same. The first half was a crucial part that takes place completely in a single room with a minimal cast. It does not go through the intro, just begins to tell the story like it's already happening and you might take a few minutes to realise the state of condition. The next half is a reaction to what happened in the previous. And again this is also an important storytelling section because like the title, it was not all about the room, but beyond that 4 walls and its roof and floor like how it affected the mother and son.

> "If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."

The movie does not talk about the crime feature at all. Not even considered to reveal behind the motive. So the other side mystery remains as it is. The whole narration was one sided, everything was seen through the eyes of a five year old boy. He begins with the line 'Once upon a time...' like a fairy tale, because it is to him and with his cute little performance along with Brie Larson's, the movie briefs their struggle for freedom.

It was a too casual opening, like nothing bad is really happening, just they're weird people or maybe agoraphobia, except they're not. You know when we say we love to be kids again to escape this complicated adult life, sometimes we won't mean it except it was a normal reaction to the situation we're in. But what if a five year old boy wants to be four again when her mother thinks its time to him know what the real world looks like. Yeah, that's a too much to take in for a young boy, but that's the best chance they had to break free from the psycho who put her mother in that room.

> "When I was small, I only knew small things.
> But now I'm five, I know everything."

It was a tidy place, but the camera angles were impressive. I know it was shot in a studio with a wide open space behind the camera, but that does not the viewpoint in the actual story. When the first half ends, it is an indication of the good parts are over, at least that's what I thought of, but what came after was the unexpected expansion in narration. Usually most of the similar tales end in that part itself like for example 'Prisoners' and the rest is understandable stuff that won't be shown.

When a tale had a ending like 'happily ever after', still some people desire for it to continue a few more minutes to know how happy really they are and that's what this film's second half. Remember, most of the similar themes have multiple perspectives, like how victim's family is coping with, cops are pursuing the suspect, abductor's plans and motive, and captives struggle. Like I said it was all about what a mother and her son goes through those years in captivity and after that.

There were some suspicious characters and events like I had a bad feeling over the doctor's soft talking, also the mother-son's master plan when in captive. Those are tiny diversions to viewers assume differently against where the story is heading. It is all about the mother and son's mental trauma, especially for the little boy similar to when Tarzan is in a big town for the first time leaving behind his other life. It was a perfect pace as well, neither hurried nor a slow development. The movie was a big break for many, especially for the Irish director, and Brie Larson and of course for the kid. Definitely one of the finest movie of 2015 and a must watch.

9/10