When I first saw Raum, the main reason I was drawn to the movie was the Academy Award and Golden Globe for future Captain Marvel star Brie Larson. All I knew about the plot was that it was set in space and is based on a bestseller. In hindsight, the best thing that could have happened to me – because the less you know about the highly emotional drama, the more effectively it unfolds its power. The premise is therefore only briefly outlined, after I will tell you in advance that you can stream “Room” with your trusted VoD provider – for example with Amazon Prime Video:
The movie starts off so haunting
The story begins in the room of the same name, which is only nine square meters in size, but offers everything 24-year-old Joy Newsome (Brie Larson) and her five-year-old son Jack (Jacob Tremblay) need to survive. A bed to sleep in, a toilet and a kitchenette, a cupboard, a TV, a table, two chairs and a rug to play with. Daylight enters through a skylight, otherwise the room has no windows.
But the room has a door. A heavy metal door that is always locked because only one person knows the access code: The criminal loner Old Nick (Sean Bridgers) took control of Joy with a perfidious trick and imprisons her in the soundproof room for seven years. Since he regularly rapes his now depressed victim, he is also Jack’s father. And his biological son has no idea what’s beyond these four walls…
Caught from minute 1
Not only Joy and Jack are absorbed in this breathtakingly exciting film – I too was fascinated by ‘Space’ from the first minute. This substance is extremely stressful for the kidneys. We need a few minutes to realize what is actually happening here: where are mother and son? Why does the boy greet every object that is in the room in the morning? And why does he look like a girl?
We soon begin to understand that the two are not at home, but in a prison against their will, and that they make themselves as comfortable as possible there. And that Jack doesn’t even know what else is out there in the world. Directly behind the skylight, which at least documents the seasons, he suspects the universe. He considers television images as fiction, whether it concerns a cartoon, an animal documentary or the news.
Screenwriter Emma Donoghue, who adapted her own novel for the sensitively arranged film adaptation, gives us a double whammy: how bad must it be for a young woman to be held captive for seven years and raped night after night? And how bad for a child in the best time of discovery to discover almost nothing of the world? But as paradoxical as that sounds, Jack is relatively happy because he knows nothing else and his mother is with him all day.
Is there an escape?
Beginning with the haunting overture, the initial three-person chamber play, directed by Lenny Abrahamson, develops plenty of fascination within minutes. It’s incredibly moving how pleasant Joy makes her son’s captivity, and immensely unsettling how she endures the night attacks and bravely endures her fate. But there is always hope: Joy is not ready. Can she somehow escape?
At just under an hour, “Room” heads for a dramatic climax – and it would have been easy to let the story end after this heartbeat moment. In the second half of the film, which we will not divulge here, the story develops in a different direction without diminishing the impact of the gripping drama in any way.
In addition to the bravura performance of Oscar winner Brie Larson, who consulted a nutritionist and a trauma expert in preparation for her role, the Canadian young actor Jacob Tremblay, who was eight years old when the film was made, also stars. The supporting cast is also first class – such as ‘Fargo’ star William H. Macy or Joan Allen from the ‘Bourne’ series.
If you rent or buy the heart-pounding kidnapping drama from Amazon Prime Video or any other VoD provider for what is currently a very cheap amount, those few bucks are well-invested. Incidentally, “Space” also received a whopping 4.5 out of 5 stars in the 2016 FILMSTARS review.