Room (2015), R, ★★★★

Years in one single room cannot be ALL that BAD.

It is a scary feeling for anybody to have a feeling of getting abducted in the middle of the day in the middle of a neighborhood where you are not familiar with, but worse, in where you are familiar with. You underestimate the dangers around the suburbs. But, put yourself in the victim's point of view, you will have no idea of how long you are going to be with your kidnapper: a month, six months, a year, six years? Plus, you cannot figure out how you can get yourself out of his/her place and out of the situation. Well, the victim(s) has to realize how to get themselves out of reality and try to find the goodness in every way, even if you have a child in your hands. Room provides a emotional heft in the everyday reality that the innocent characters go through and make the situation better. Without corny sentimentality and forced manipulation, the movie delivers a heart-tugging drama that will persuade you to grab someone else's forearm during the suspenseful moments and get you bawling during the emotional moments.

Jack (Jacob Tremblay) and his mother, who we only know as Ma (Brie Larson), live in a tiny rundown space. Jack has long hair and says "hi" to all the furniture and things in the tiny room. The movie begins with Jack getting excited for his fifth birthday and Ma tells him that they're going to make a birthday cake for him. They have their normal routine of going through yoga practice in their bathroom and him playing with a few things. However, due to the limited supplies, Ma bakes a small cake but Jack questions why there are no candles on the cake and that gets him upset.

We learn that Ma was abducted at a very young are and has sex continuously by a man who is called Old Nick. The next morning, they go throughout their normal day as Ma takes care of a bad tooth as she bites and chews on apple slices. Again, she is irritated by the limited resources that she has in that  "room". Jack tries to dream as hard and as original as possible and he imagines that he has a pet dog named Lucky. As time passes on and as a plan fails, Ma and Jack develop a plan in which Jack will pretend to be "dead" and he will be outside in the back of a pick-up truck, be motionless for a while, unravel from the rug and jump out into the "outside world".

Jack asks Ma whether or not that she will join him in the "outside world" once the plan is initiated. She agrees with him but she has to be realistic in knowing that she may not survive when Old Nick will find out and figure out that Ma foiled a plan for her and Jack to escape. So, they begin with the plan and they roll with it, the question is whether or not Ma and Jack will escape successfully and be reunited again.

What in the "outside world"?

The whole movie is terrific all the way through with a realistic and relatable situation that is placed upon these two interesting characters and trying to make the best out of the situation. However, at the core of the situation, there is the mother-son relationship. I believe that the mother does anything possible to achieve the impossible by escaping but also the son learns almost anything every day whether it's from his mother or from his own mind. It is an observed testament to see what both mother and son learn every day to take to their liberty and their freedom in the "outside world". It's both painful and illuminating. This first half of the movie is really about the maternal bond with a child and the child development to discover what's meaningful in life and what's not truthful. The second half is overcoming the pain they both suffer through physically, mentally and emotionally.

Brie Larson gives a rapturous and quietly powerful performance as a mother who has to be strong for both herself and her son with the vulnerability and limited resources she has because she initially has no hope for both her and her son. But, for me, it is Jacob Tremblay who impressed me the most because he has the maturity level of a great young actor that is dramatic in both the delivery of his dialogue and the emotion that he provides when facing everyday reality in the dismal world and the new reality in the outside world. But, in the end, he has a fantastic chemistry with Larson. They sold me as a young mother-and-son couple. Also, Joan Allen gives a great supporting performance as the grandma and William H. Macy has a good small role.

It is like a watching two perfect episodes of a movie with director Lenny Abrahamson focusing both on the outside reality in both psychological and educational fashion where it is small, frightening, creepy and heartbreaking, and with the reality that there is warmth in the maternal bond in that they try to live a normal life. The movie is transcendent as Abrahamson brings illuminating camerawork in both the natural lighting of sun rays and a beacon of light upon the characters and a small and claustrophobic atmosphere of the struggles they have to face. These are two sides of psychological emotion that could've easily bring forced emotion and turn into a cheesy Lifetime movie.

This is one of the best movies of the year featuring two Oscar-caliber performances from both Larson and Tremblay, no, seriously, I really mean that people ought to look at Jacob Tremblay for awards consideration. Abrahamson has evoked the psychological levels of despair and hope simultaneously all wrapped in the maternal bond with a child that is both heartbreaking and heartwarming. Mothers, you will want to hug your child, no matter how old he or she is, after the movie is over.

****