Excellent movie. Excellent.
I should back up. I cannot unread the book. And the book was phenomenal. But that, to me, makes the movie even better: it was beautifully true to the book. To its voice. To its story. To its feel.
The book is written from the perspective of young Jack. Five years old. No, it’s not a “See Jane run” way of writing, but it’s imagined through his eyes, his observations, his keen sense of perception that those of us with more life experience might overlook. And yet this too means the only things we know in the book are those things Jack sees. That the book did this with fantastic writing as well—that’s phenomenal. But the movie did this too. Perfectly. And that makes this an excellent movie.
The basic premise of the story surrounds young Jack. He’s been raised by his mother. In Room. Room—with a capital R—as he has named things around him and in this room. This one room where he and his Ma live. One room. For five years (for Jack; you might guess that his mother has been there longer).
It gives nothing away if you’ve seen the trailers to understand that Jack and his mother are held against their will. His mother, of course, was held here before Jack existed. You may be getting the picture. So yes, there’s awfulness in the film. There’s dark. There’s ugly. There’s scary. But there too is an amazing love of this young mother with no guidance and no books and no internet and no ability to figure out how to raise her son in these circumstances—other than love. And it is her love that helps them survive here.
I don’t want to talk too much more about the film itself; the viewer should learn the story as it happens. But I will applaud (with a standing ovation) the movie’s cast and director in how beautifully they expanded this story—without ever chaining the premise of the book or its perspective. (Brie Larson earns every award nomination (and hopefully wins) she will have from this film. Jacob Tremblay as young Jack—-oh, I only hope he will be protected as this incredible child actor he has. Talent, natural beautiful talent.)
As I said, the tale is narrated by Jack. He’s 5. So in his eyes, he interprets only so much. But the director and cast here added rich, layered depth merely by the looks on Joy (Ma)’s face. Merely by the looks exchanged by characters. Merely by the body language in certain scenes. And this was brilliant. Nothing in doing so took away from the beauty that was in the pages. But it enriched it. Technicolor-stereo-high definition enriching. Excellent.
I’m curious what others think of the film—those of you who did not read the book. As I said, I cannot unread the book, and I’m sure that adds to my love of the movie. I hope that those who did not read the book love the movie at least half as much as I did. If so, you’ll too think it is one of the tops of the year.
(My thoughts on the book are brief, likely due to time constraints or possibly my utter amazement with the book. For what it’s worth, those thoughts are here.)