One of the most talked-about films at the Toronto International Film Festival, Lenny Abrahamson’s “Room,’’ is pretty much the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.
It’s based on an Emma Donoghue novel (which I haven’t read) which puts a unique spin on a tabloid staple — the woman who’s abducted and held captive for years by a psychopath.
When we first meet Ma (a brilliant Brie Larson), she’s seven years into her captivity in a squalid, sound-proofed, concrete garden shed with only a too-high-to-reach skylight. Her entire life (and salvation) revolves around Jack (a simply amazing Jacob Tremblay), the boy she gave birth to after being raped by her captor.
It’s Jack’s 5th birthday, and Ma begins explaining the concept of an outside world to a skeptical Jack, who has never been outside his tiny home and has never been separated from his mother. (He tries to sleep in a closet during involuntary conjugal visits with Ma by their captor, known only as Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), who drops off food and has the combination to the electronic lock on the door.
Ma, who explains to Jack she made a failed escape attempt when he was a baby, concocts an even more ingenious one — which will require the terrified Jack to be separated from Ma for the first time and risk physical harm. So, after one of the most gripping first hours in a movie that I can recall, Jack encounters the outside world for the first time, and Ma is freed from their prison (if only physically at first).
The second half of the film, which portrays their difficult, gradual adjustment after years in captivity, is fascinating in an entirely different way. Ma’s mom (Joan Allen) embraces her confused and frightened new grandson, gradually winning his trust. Things are more tense between her and the moody Ma, who ends up being temporarily institutionalized after an ill-advised TV interview. Ma’s dad (the briefly seen William H. Macy in a rare misjudged performance), who is long divorced from Grandma, can’t deal with the fact that his grandson was conceived in a rape. But Grandma’s new husband (Tom McCamus) cautiously reaches out to the shy Jack, who is totally baffled by a comfortable suburban existence after his extremely Spartan upbringing.
Directed with enormous assurance by Irish director Abrahamson (“Frank’’), “Room” is a one-of-a-kind, must-see experience — and not entirely a pleasant one. But see it you must for the Oscar-caliber Larson and young Tremblay, whose remarkable mother-and-child bond is nothing sort of astonishing to watch. “Room’’ opens stateside on Oct. 16.