Room

Year of Release: 2015
Director:  Lenny Abrahamson
Screenplay:  Emma Donoghue, based on the novel Room by Emma Donoghue
Starring:  Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Joan Allen, Sean Bridgers, William H. Macy
Running Time:  117 minutes

Put simply, this adaptation of the best-selling novel Room by Emma Donoghue sounds really unpromising.  24 year old Joy (Larson) and her 5 year old son Jack (Tremblay) live together in a furnished, but squalid and tiny garden shed, where Joy has been held prisoner for the last seven years and where Jack has lived his entire life, without ever seeing anything of the outside world except the patch of sky that can be seen through a tiny skylight.  To Joy it's a living hell where she is subjected to daily rape by her captor "Old Nick" (Bridgers), but to Jack, who Joy shields from the reality of their situation, it is a place of wonder and magic and contains his entire world.  To say anything more would be to risk spoiling it, although to be honest, if you've seen the trailer or the poster than you'll get a pretty good idea.

This is not a horror film and it is not really a crime film (although obviously it centres on a crime).  The story is told through Jack's eyes, it opens seven years into Joy's ordeal, we never see her abduction and Old Nick's assaults are never shown.  It's a film about the bond between a mother and her child, and it is also about how people find strength even in the worst possible circumstances.  It's a harrowing, heartbreaking but ultimately redemptive film.  

The performances are fantastic with Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay both fantastic,  Larson managing to convey so much of the horror of the situation with just a look, and Tremblay giving an astonishing debut performance.  

Many people will probably be put off the film simply by the premise, and that is completely understandable, it is definitely not for everyone.  However it is worth giving it a chance because it is really stunning.