Room
Lenny Abrahamson's new drama Room, based on the best-selling novel by Emma Donoghue, premiered at the London Film Festival to high critical praise.
Room film still
Directed by the infinitely varied Lenny Abrahamson (Frank, What Richard Did), upcoming drama Room is receiving Oscar nudges for its stand-out performances and genre-defying tone.
Room is based on Emma Donoghue’s best-selling eponymous novel and tells of the experiences of Ma, a young mother imprisoned in an eleven-square-foot room, and her five-year-old son, Jack, who was born in captivity and has never known the outside world.
Abrahamson's ability to spin a subject best suited to horror into an emotional and heartwarming narrative is a testament to his talents as director – and the strength of Donoghue's narration. Room explores the naivety of those formative 'plastic' years and the potential lifelong repercussions of childhood trauma, but in the subtlest of ways. When, finally, the two manage to escape, they find themselves faced with the further challenge of adapting to life in the outside world.
With astonishing performances from seven year old Jacob Tremblay and the Oscar-tipped Brie Larson, Room is definitely worth the fuss.
It’s amazing to see such an ostensibly monstrous subject treated such warmth and humanity.
That’s what impressed me so much about Emma’s novel: people expect it’s going to be about the crime, but actually it’s not, it’s a sort of love story between a mother and her son; it’s about the mixture of claustrophobia and redemption that you get as a parent; it’s about moving from the small spaces of childhood into the bigger, much more challenging, world of adulthood.
The novel tells the story in the first person, from Jack’s perspective. How difficult was it to recreate that internal narrative visually?
The novelist starts with a blank page: Emma can take you wherever she likes, and all that exists in that moment – in that whiteness of the page – is the musing, or the thought, or the object, or the observation: nothing else. But as soon as you turn a camera on something, it floods you with information – nothing can be excluded.
We were trying to do something as delicate as Emma does in the novel – holding back the horror in favour of this hopeful voice, which you really buy into as a reader: this optimistic, energetic, cute intelligent little boy. What I said to Emma was: "Ok, so you have those words, but what we have, as filmmakers, is the face." You get to be present with this little boy.
Click here to read the full interview.
Room UK release date: January 15
oscar nominees: who should win?
Room is based on Emma Donoghue’s best-selling eponymous novel and tells of the experiences of Ma, a young mother imprisoned in an eleven-square-foot room, and her five-year-old son, Jack, who was born in captivity and has never known the outside world.
Abrahamson's ability to spin a subject best suited to horror into an emotional and heartwarming narrative is a testament to his talents as director – and the strength of Donoghue's narration. Room explores the naivety of those formative 'plastic' years and the potential lifelong repercussions of childhood trauma, but in the subtlest of ways. When, finally, the two manage to escape, they find themselves faced with the further challenge of adapting to life in the outside world.
With astonishing performances from seven year old Jacob Tremblay and the Oscar-tipped Brie Larson, Room is definitely worth the fuss.
We interviewed the film's director, Lenny Abrahamson, earlier this month:
It’s amazing to see such an ostensibly monstrous subject treated such warmth and humanity.
That’s what impressed me so much about Emma’s novel: people expect it’s going to be about the crime, but actually it’s not, it’s a sort of love story between a mother and her son; it’s about the mixture of claustrophobia and redemption that you get as a parent; it’s about moving from the small spaces of childhood into the bigger, much more challenging, world of adulthood.
The novel tells the story in the first person, from Jack’s perspective. How difficult was it to recreate that internal narrative visually?
The novelist starts with a blank page: Emma can take you wherever she likes, and all that exists in that moment – in that whiteness of the page – is the musing, or the thought, or the object, or the observation: nothing else. But as soon as you turn a camera on something, it floods you with information – nothing can be excluded.
We were trying to do something as delicate as Emma does in the novel – holding back the horror in favour of this hopeful voice, which you really buy into as a reader: this optimistic, energetic, cute intelligent little boy. What I said to Emma was: "Ok, so you have those words, but what we have, as filmmakers, is the face." You get to be present with this little boy.
Click here to read the full interview.
Room UK release date: January 15
oscar nominees: who should win?
TRY CULTURE WHISPER
Receive free tickets & insider tips to unlock the best of London — direct to your inbox
| What | Room |
| Where | Various Locations | MAP |
| Nearest tube | Leicester Square (underground) |
| When |
15 Jan 16 – 01 Apr 16, 12:00 PM – 12:00 AM |
| Price | £ determined by cinema |
| Website | Click here to go to the Room IMDB page |