ROOM: Expanding Our Empathy

Heartache is an interesting condition. It is usually associated with romance, when break ups lead to heartbreak.   So what should we call a situation where you find yourself rooting so hard for someone else’s happiness, that their trials and tribulations make your heart ache?

Room is both harrowing and heroic.   It places a heavy burden upon its characters and thanks to superb acting, writing and directing, transfers that weight to the audience.   Emma Donoghue adapted her award-winning novel to what will surely be an equally award-winning film. The plight of a young mother and her child, trapped in a tiny room, caused me to feel my world caving in.   As Jack and his Ma struggle to escape the horrific grip of sexual slavery, I felt the gravity of their situation pressing upon my chest.

Room is about a mother’s determination to protect her child. It is about confronting and overcoming our worst fears.   Room illustrates the power of mind over matter.   As Ma, Brie Larson demonstrates a remarkable resilience.   She demonstrates how we can adapt to our circumstances no matter how grim. After anchoring the remarkable humanizing indie, Short Term 12, Larson reveals an even greater range. Who else can convey righteous anger, calculating intelligence, and utter incapacity within such limiting conditions?

Ma’s son, Jack, is used to life in captivity. Although hemmed in by his surroundings, Jack still expresses the desire for ‘a different story.’ Jacob Tremblay does a phenomenal job of conveying childlike glee and justifiable fear.   His performance never comes across as cloying or manipulative.   He just dwells honestly within the scary place where sheer evil knocks on his door on a regular basis.

Room takes us inside the experience of the victims of sexual predators. It pulls us behind the headlines that make survivors like Elizabeth Smart into household names.   It also chronicles how the media relishes such horrific stories with almost casual boundless and perverse fascination. Irish director Lenny Abrahamson resists the many opportunities to sensationalize this story.   He keeps the camera up close, focused on the faces of those who matter most. Evil is not glorified. Problems are not solved quickly.   The supporting cast, led by Joan Allen, conveys all the helplessness that parents and loved ones are bound to feel in similar situations.   Room invites us to consider how much endurance, ingenuity, and resolve resides within us.

The skylight which provides their only connection to the world outside both taunts and tantalizes Ma and Jack.  They get hints of the change in seasons in a stray leaf or a build up of ice.  As they look up, there is a glimmer of transcendence.  Ma seems to wonder if there is a God, then why are they trapped in such hellish circumstances.  And yet, for Jack especially, there must be more than what they’ve seen on TV or watched crossing over the skylight.  How to connect with that great, potentially wide and wonderful beyond?

Room is a bracing challenge to awaken our senses, to love the world, to appreciate all the things that happen and happen and happen in any given day. You can’t rush to or through Room. Like the characters, you have to sit with the situation. You have to let the full gravity sink in. It is not easily shaken off; nor should it be. Room leaves an indelible impression proportional to the force inflicted upon Ma and Jack. But it rewards viewers with expanded empathy, a capacity to care for those who have become our daily headlines. Such genuine heartache is a rare and precious gift.