As promised during the epic introduction to the forthcoming snarking for this year’s set of “Oscar Bait” films, which seem to have been just created for the sole purpose of winning anything that has the phantom of the opera’s face on it in some shape or form, we now take a look at the Mother / Son dynamic based Room.

The dynamic duo of stars in the other star of the film, the room itself.

Now to show I actually tried to research some of the background for this film, here’s some facts…Ok, I cheated and just looked at IMDB.

Room was a film on a limited release last year in only a few places like the US, Turkey and Slovakia. So as you can imagine, it hasn’t done that well at the box office at the moment but is set for release in the UK 15th January, having been moved away from competing with other Oscar Bait films releasing at the same time, which given one of the films Spotlight happily devotes time to the “child loving too much” catholic priests scandal, they are far more likely to get bums on seats.

It was adapted from a novel of the same name written by Emma Donoghue, who then also wrote the screenplay for this as well. Apparently Emma had put everything together after what occurred with Joseph Fritzl and his wonderful holiday camp of horrors in Austria back in 2008, who apparently didn’t have anything better to do in life other than imprison and repeatedly impregnating his daughter. So already you know that this is not going to be something people would not flock to see in droves, much like Big Brother.

So far, so shiny shiny chaser given the fact that last night at the time of writing, the lead actress Brie Larson has won a Golden Globe for her performance. However, having watched a preview at a Brixton picturehouse before Room’s general release, I am honestly impressed.

So much so, that instead of proceeding to mock the whole thing as I had done for other films last year which deserved the bile, I would actually state now, ahead of going into details, that this was a remarkable production and the people involved should actually be very proud of themselves. Now hang on, I hear you cry, how the hell can you actually justify this, especially given the fact that it’s going to be about as fun as putting your love spuds in a blender and having lots of fun switching it on and off?

Oh yeah, this will be in the window of Foxtons come tomorrow morning….

There will of course be some spoilers to what happens, but it does indeed keep with how we do this kind of rubbish most of the time. Except for when Star Wars came along of course.

Well let’s start at the beginning, where we find two inhabitants of a crappy little studio apartment which judging from the sight of it, would fetch about £600 a week in King’s Cross regardless. Seriously, the place is a sh*thole, with everything in one place, and there is only a skylight to see anything outside.

Contestant number one is a just turned 5 year old scamp called Jack (played by Jacob Tremblay, who was introduced in the preview screening as being in a couple of films which frankly you would rather watch paint dry once you heard the names). Contestant number two is his mum (played by now award-winning for this, Brie Larson) who later, we learn she’s named Joy.

They have a bit of fun times, they bake a birthday cake and it seems to be pretty simple right at the beginning. But don’t worry kids, because the fun times come into focus very quickly!

As you gather from the link with the Fritzel f*cker, they are being held prisoner by a depraved idiot with a beard hanging off of it Old Nick who put them in a shed (hence the state of Room). Basically he turns up to bring food and then do naughty with Jack’s mum while Jack is put in the wardrobe to sleep. Trust me, it’s not a pleasant experience to hear this occurring on screen, given that we are in essence in the wardrobe with Jack when this is all happening and the mind is left to contemplate the evil meh occurring a few feet away.

The most heart racing rug unroll you will ever see….

The thing is, Jack’s apparently old enough to know that there is more to life than just Room, with Mouse and Chair and Lamp… oh yeah, everything had names… and this was not so easy to explain with Jack getting completely wound up as his mum Joy was telling him everything was a lie and they needed to get out.

Thus the great escape begins to be planned, just without a horse vault and Steve McQueen. Why bother now when they hadn’t tried before? Seems that Old Nick is out of work and short on money so perhaps it won’t be long before they are in trouble, more than they already were in. To be perfectly honest, who the hell would even want to take any chances by doing nothing at this point?

So thanks to the fact that Old Nick invested in a door with a electronic combination lock but remarkably no CCTV to watch what was going on, we see the dynamic duo work hard to get everything right, even if it’s a long shot by pretending that Jack is dead. Sure enough, the plan works with Old Nick taking what he believes to be the dead body of Jack out of Room and bury him somewhere with trees.

This makes for one of the most heart racing events I’ve felt watching a film as Jack makes a very very narrow escape once a passer-by tries to help and asks questions of what’s going on. Old Nick makes a run for it and Jack directs the police to where his mum is still locked away. Which seems to be a one in a million chance of doing so seeing as he never left and had no idea of what was happening while he was out of Room.

But don’t worry campers, as we see in both the main film and the official trailer, Old Nick is caught by the fuzz and a life sentence surely awaits. Bit of a spoiler you would have thought but hey, they put it in the trailer so who cares?

Old Nick….HATE HIM!

Ok, so we’ve dealt with a fair amount of the story so far, and there are actually is more to it which we will show some of it here, but it doesn’t come close to what you see on screen before you. So now let’s go into the meat of the matter, which is of course surely wasn’t easy for everyone involved.

It’s fair to say that this is a film of two halves or thereabouts, simply because you can split it into two main plots; the first being all about setting the scene in Room and the escape from said Room by Jack and Joy. The next focuses on the aftermath of what would happen to Jack and Joy after suffering through a complete headf*ck of a situation, something which a lot of these type of films which focus on harrowing events seldom do.

We see Jack struggle with some of the world which he’s never seen and mistrust everyone for a time, all completely understandable. On the flip side, Joy lost several years of her life and now can finally think about what had been lost, to the point of breaking down.

But rather cleverly, the film even brings into focus what happens to the friends and family of Joy (and of course by extension, Jack). We see that there were real problems for Grandma and Grandpa, played by Joan Allen and William H. Macy. But ol William H Macy is not actually in the film that much really, only a few minutes at most, but what he does is just show how difficult it can be to accept anything like what occurred.

Christ, he can’t even look at Jack and never comes back into the story afterwards, with some excuse given that he had to go away. This leaves you asking “Was it too much for him to take that he had a grandson as a result of imprisonment and rape?”

Dude, got to be honest….you look like a girl.

Having to confront everything that had happened naturally would push anyone to breaking and that was expertly shown by all involved. A huge mention must be made about Jacob Tremblay’s performance, in that he showed the disconnect between himself and everything else going on, even remarking that he wanted to go back to Room. Of course he would, in comparison to what had happened since escaping, from his point of view, it’s all he’s known.

A lot of the commentary from Jacob is incredibly well put over in such an innocent fashion that only dead people wouldn’t be moved by what he talks about and how he describes what goes on. A lot of the film you could argue is from his point of view, given that we spend the most time with Jacob as the lovely Jack, even if it’s in the company of others too. Some of his actions like trying to give his mum his “strength” by cutting his long hair at a time when Joy is close to rock bottom is nothing short of amazing.

Speaking of Joy, it’s perhaps a disservice to not even mention Brie Larson till now. She puts in a well deserved awarded performance as Joy, dealing with quite troubling subject matter. With both Jacob and Brie on screen, you truly are rooting for them to get over the nightmare they’ve both had to endure and actually amazed that they have truly stuck together and are so loving when there would have been times of little hope.

The subject matter itself, the whole horrible situation of imprisonment and of course pregnancy resulting from said imprisonment and rape is handled with great thought and care, but in William H Macy’s case, didn’t shy away from some of the more difficult emotional questions.

Throughout the film, it sets the pace very well, with excellent use of music to bring further a rush of emotion at key points and hell there were even tears and crying in the screening, which only goes to show it can actually really affect you. There were even times of humour with great lines delivered from Jack when asking questions. Despite the horrors of Old Nick, you identify with everyone and hell, you could even ask yourself; what would you do after having to endure the suffering?

Of course, there were a few convenient details which happened in order to move the plot forward, like why didn’t Old Nick have CCTV therefore would have known they were planning crap while he had gone to the trouble of putting a f*cking electronic lock on the shed door? It was also such incredible police work that the cops were able to narrow down exactly where Joy was still locked up based on a couple of descriptions given by Jack after they had a brief chat with him. They are better than bloody Google Maps and hell not even all the computer crap the CSI lads would have done better here!

Today on NBC, cooking tips with Joy on how to bake a cake while held prisoner….

But overall, this first foray into the award chasing season of 2016 did yield some very compelling food for thought. Would I recommend you watch this?

Yes, I would actually, if perhaps only once. I suspect a lot of the impact you would get from the film would dissolve upon repeat viewings. However I do really understand that this is a film that you would never really go out of your way to watch if you have little money and want to get the best bang for your bucks, you’d likely bugger off to watch the Hateful Eight first of all.

But it would be criminal not to at least consider this film, given that the performances from all the cast, the great writing and the fact that I’ve never felt my heart race for a rug unrolling before, yeah, I can recommend Room. In many ways, it’s very worthy of the praise and as said at the very beginning, everyone involved should be very proud of what they created here. So that’s Room then; difficult subject matter handled in a very human way.

If all this hasn’t convinced you to watch it when it comes to UK cinemas on the 15th January, watch the trailer below for a taste;