Room - A Review

Author’s Note: I am thankful to Siddharth Gupta for pulling me out on a lazy Friday evening to watch this peach of a movie. Room was potent, powerful cinema. 

The story lingered in our thoughts as we left the theatre and beyond. None of us talked in the cab ride back to the ISB campus. “Life affirming” was what the blurb advertising the movie promised. Well this movie proves not all advertising is hogwash. 

I’ll be honest. I hate little boys. Such brats, little know-it-alls, miniature wreck-it-Ralphs. Little girls, in comparison are such angels. So proper, so caring, so composed. After Room, at least one little boy has redeemed himself. Jacob “Jack” Trembley saves his mother’s soul when she finds herself stuck in a modern-day horror story. The child is not precocious, simply tenacious, resilient and caring. He conquers his fears for the sake of his mother, not in a hedonistic way as in when parents often tell children to try this and that, and hope that something will stick, only if the child learns to enjoy it. No, Jack doesn’t like even one of the things he’s ready to try for the sake of his Ma; in fact he is terrified. But he does them nevertheless – for love.

The most powerful line in the movie is delivered by the child actor – “I pick for the both of us.” And his Ma lets him. After all why wouldn’t she listen to a person that comes to embody the best of her?