The Film of the Week (FOTW) series is back! This time, every week will have some kind of theme; one week may be 80s films, another week may be a fresh look on a film that one of us haven't yet seen!
To kick things off, we're focusing on 2015 release, Room. Here's what staff writer Melissa Allen thought after watching for the first time...
Picture Credit: StudioCanal
Room is a film that should be on everyone’s watch list, for a start. It is something that will knock you down, give you hope, knock you down and then give you the happiness you weren’t sure you would get.
The movie follows Joy (Brie Larson), who, since she was 17, has been living in just one small room. She was kidnapped, forced into this tiny space, and raped.
After some time, Joy has a son. Her son, Jack (Jacob Tremblay), knows nothing of the world outside the room. Joy has told Jack that the room is it; she tells her son that the room they are in is all that life is.
When Jack turns five, Joy tries once again to break free. She mentions to Jack she had tried before, but the man who keeps them in there, they call him Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), had injured her.
After a failed attempt to get Old Nick to take Jack to the hospital, after boiling some water and dabbing it into Jack’s face (to make it seem like he has a fever), Old Nick simply says he will get the child some tablets.
The next day, Joy wraps Jack up in their rug, teaches him how to wriggle out, and tells him what to do once Old Nick takes him away. She has a plan. Pretend Jack is dead and get Old Nick to 'dispose of the body'.
From then on, we see how Jack and Joy cope with the outside world. Jack hasn’t seen a dog, a house, trees, even other people. Joy also struggles as so much has changed in the seven years she has been gone…
This film is different to anything we have seen before; parts of it play like a horror movie like when Jack and Joy are visited by Old Nick and you can hear him making his way to the room.
Other parts play like a drama or documentary, with Joy arguing with her mother and the camera zooming in slightly in the scene where Joy does a TV interview.
This film invokes so many emotions. Fear, happiness, melancholy, hope… the film is truly outstanding in the sense that you feel all these emotions in such a strong manner, and just like the characters you are unsure of what may come next.
For a rather low budget film and, for the first half only one basic set, the film has done an exceptional job to portray a mother who has raised her son well to say they were trapped for so long.
This film is picture perfect, the cast is small but brilliant, and Tremblay’s performance is utterly mesmerising. He plays a boy who was happy in the room and therefore scared by the outside world – but a boy who loves his mother and eventually manages to make friends; one of which is a sweet dog.
This film cannot get high enough praise, for the perfect performances from everyone, but especially Tremblay and of course Larson who plays Joy with excellence.
The camera shots change throughout from close to far to zoomed in. The lighting is brighter than it should be (for a reason) – after only seeing out of a skylight, the outside world is almost too bright. Neither of these could have been done any better – every shot and painful word serves a purpose.
The reality of this film is what makes it stand out. You would expect that when Joy is free she would be happy, but she is almost as scared as Jack to be out of that room. The news hounding the family is also part of reality in real cases similar to this one, which the film nails immaculately.
If you have not seen Room, then you need to log onto Netflix and do so - immediately.
Written by Melissa, who you can follow on Twitter @melissajournal
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Tagged in Brie Larson Jacob Tremblay