Emma Donoghue’s Booker-shortlisted Room was a succès de scandale when it was released in 2011. Its tale of a mother and child held captive for years had many unsettling real-life resonances.
Director Lenny Abrahamson (Frank) has a rare talent for cutting to the heart of irreversible moral choices, as seen in films including Garage and What Richard Did, which makes him an ideal choice to direct the Donoghue-penned screenplay.
Abrahamson mixes established and emerging talent with this feature, with Brie Larson (Short Term 12), William H. Macy and newcomer Jacob Tremblay as the five year old boy who has never known life outside the room. When the pair devise a precarious plan of escape, they are forced to return to, and discover, the wonders, horrors and choices of the world they left behind.
Harrowing, suspenseful and wondrous, this film represents the culmination of a variety of talents.