{"id":19202,"date":"2016-01-26T22:58:03","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T12:58:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=19202"},"modified":"2016-01-26T22:58:03","modified_gmt":"2016-01-26T12:58:03","slug":"room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=19202","title":{"rendered":"Room"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"roomposter\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Director: \u00a0<\/strong>Lenny Abrahamson
\nWriter: \u00a0<\/strong>Emma Donoghue
\nCast: \u00a0<\/strong>Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay<\/p>\nI<\/span>rish-Canadian author Emma Donoghue was inspired to write\u00a0Room<\/em> when the events of the notorious Josef Fritzl case made headlines around the world in\u00a02009. \u00a0She took particular interest in Felix Fritzl, the five year old boy who was born in Josef Fritzl’s basement in captivity and had never set foot in the outside world before his family were rescued by the authorities.<\/p>\n

It’s an extraordinary situation. \u00a0How does a little boy go from living in such extreme confinement to absorbing the sights, sounds, smells and freedoms of the outside world? \u00a0Think about what an incredible adjustment that would be. \u00a0It’s an intriguing premise for a story.<\/p>\n

As Felix Fritzl is the inspiration for Emma Donoghue’s story, it is through the eyes of a five year old boy named Jack Newsome that we see the events of\u00a0Room<\/em>. \u00a0Jack’s mother Joy was a teenager was she was kidnapped by a man known only as ‘Old Nick’. \u00a0She has been in captivity for seven years.<\/p>\n

Joy and Jack are imprisoned in an outdoor shed that is locked by a sophisticated security system that only Old Nick can open. \u00a0Joy does her best to make life as pleasant and normal for Jack as possible and we see that she is a good mother in an otherwise unbearable situation. \u00a0Jack’s comprehension of the world is limited to the confines of his environment which he identifies as Room. \u00a0His only clues to the existence of the outside world is the skylight in the shed and a rickety old television set with lousy reception.<\/p>\n

One of the ideas that the film\u00a0explores is the resilience of young children. \u00a0Jack lives in a challenging and stressful environment where he understands that Old Nick is a figure to be feared and best hidden from but he is otherwise astonishingly well adjusted. \u00a0He is breastfed to a late age but otherwise Jack\u00a0copes with his isolated upbringing\u00a0exceptionally well by allowing his imagination to run wild. \u00a0He pretends to have a pet dog named Lucky. \u00a0He names and affectionately speaks with inanimate objects in the house. \u00a0Like a regular kid his age, he is infatuated with Dora the Explorer.<\/p>\n

Ultimately it is his bond with his mother that is the heart and soul of the movie. \u00a0Even during their imprisonment, the two share many happy moments together where we marvel at Joy’s ingenuity to create some sort of facsimile of normal living (birthday cakes, exercise, toys etc) and warm to Jack’s quirks and mannerisms which are wonderfully brought to life by young actor Jacob Tremblay.<\/p>\n

\"roommovie\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Configuring the story so that we see the world from the perspective of a five year old , Emma Donoghue (who wrote the screenplay) and director Lenny Abrahamson elevate the story\u00a0from being a voyeuristic portrayal of suffering to a warm-hearted and optimistic film about parenthood.<\/p>\n

It is no spoiler to say that Joy and Jack escape from Old Nick. \u00a0It was a conscious decision made by Abrahamson and the producers to include their life after captivity in the trailers to inform\u00a0audiences\u00a0that this is not a thriller centered on their captivity.<\/p>\n

Adjusting to life in the outside world becomes a challenge for Joy and Jack for very different reasons. \u00a0For Jack, there is not enough time in the day to ask ‘why’. \u00a0There is suddenly so much to see, so much to absorb and scarily, other people to meet and interact with – both adults and children.<\/p>\n

For Joy, she finds that the elation of escaping Old Nick is fleeting. \u00a0It quickly becomes replaced by a sense of emptiness and isolation. \u00a0She reconnects with her parents in the outside world but things have changed since she was a teenager. \u00a0Her parents are now divorced and her father is completely incapable of coming to terms with Jack and the nature of how he was conceived. \u00a0Her mother has a new partner named Leo and although she does her best to be supportive, mother and daughter clash and have many arguments.<\/p>\n

During the first few weeks of freedom, Joy expresses frustration with Jack’s introverted behaviour and grows frustrated with his attachment to a smart phone that plays cartoons and she worries he isn’t having\u00a0any meaningful interactions with other people (a cheeky riff on anyone too beholden to their iPhone!). \u00a0But as Jack begins to adapt to life outside of Room quicker than Joy, she begins to question her identity and her sense of purpose which was so strongly defined before.<\/p>\n

Room\u00a0<\/em>is a beautifully told story and the secret to its success is its lightness and humanity. \u00a0I re-read my review of the book from six years ago and back then I admired the concept but thought it failed in execution. \u00a0Either this is one of those rare cases of the film being better than the book or I’ve simply changed my mind on the matter.<\/p>\n

I think the story is better for not having Joy as the centre of the story. \u00a0We don’t need to see the moment of her capture\u00a0or relive her ordeal at the hands of Old Nick. \u00a0That would be a completely different sort of film. \u00a0Despite the awful circumstances that face Joy and Jack when we are introduced to them,\u00a0Room<\/em> is still an overwhelmingly positive and buoyant film. \u00a0I like the questions that is asks of the viewer. \u00a0What makes us who we are? \u00a0What is important to have a happy and fulfilling life? \u00a0What does it mean to be content? \u00a0How do you adjust as a parent when your children are no longer dependent on you? \u00a0For a story that was inspired by a morbid real life tragedy, the end result is something uniquely uplifting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A five year old boy escapes life long captivity and adjusts to life in the real world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":19204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2415,966,2417,2416,965,2418],"class_list":["post-19202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films","tag-brie-larson","tag-emma-donoghue","tag-jacob-tremblay","tag-lenny-abrahamson","tag-room","tag-william-h-macy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19202"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19208,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19202\/revisions\/19208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}