Skip to main content

Room - film review

Directed by an Irish guy with a lead cast never before seen (at least I was clueless about them) the mother and son drama about being trapped in a shed for five years was an amazing take on the phrase 'paradigm shift'.

Protagonists are a mother and her son, introduced to us in the opening sequence, living in a closed box of some sort with their only view of the outside world and sunshine being a skylight in the roof.  There are some parallels to a number of stories in the real world most prominent being a woman in Ohio that was kidnapped and held captive over a decade till she was found.

As the movie unfolds we learn that the mother was a teen that got abducted from close to her home by a psycho who has stored her in a shed behind his home.  He is a sick and demented person that has since raped her multiple times. A child is born (we assume in the same confines) that we get to meet as a five year old learning to survive in the only space he knows as real.

The woman as distraught and torn as she is about her fate appears conflicted about being selfless and selfish in raising that child in that confined space and not negotiating with her captor to let him live and go out in the world.

It is complex, slow yet engaging and finally a climactic breakthrough where the child that only knows of the world in compartments like Room, World, Outer Space learns about the dimensions of real things and what things actually look like including what is and is Not real.

The child actor also shows emotion far ahead of his age where he experiences what is the reverse of claustrophobia as he figures out the larger world around him.  The film reminds me of the film 'Truman Show' in terms of its plot, where the human mind merely accepts the stimulus it repeatedly receives and forms opinions in the absence of other points of view.

Brie Larson, a Californian, for her role as the mother won the Oscar for leading female role.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Presumptive Society

Today's world is hyper connected.  I am not so sure what it means but you hear it a lot.  It is probably hyper but not sure how connected it is.  Sugar (fermented or not) is available in many ways than before and so getting hyper is easy.  It is probably more a threat than cocaine since it is sold legally. And what is this connected stuff?  Most people I encounter seem disconnected from reality.  So going back to this assumption that we are connected there are subtle and no so subtle instances of how brands and companies and middle men try to portray someone - A linkedin profile for somebody working for X years at a place advertises to the connected network that so and so is CELEBRATING X years @ Such and Such Inc. Do we know if (s)he is celebrating or cringing?  Perhaps a better way to portray will be - So and So LASTED X years @ such & such inc. Then it exhorts the readership to go ahead and congratulate them for this lasting effe...

Of Jims and Johns

Here is another essay on the subject of first names. As in birth names. Or names provided to an offspring at birth. While the developed world tends to shy away from the exotic like Refrigerator or Coca Cola for their new production there is a plethora of Jims and Johns and Bobs or Robs. Speaking of which I do not think there is a categoric decision point at the time of birth if a child will be hereafter called as Bob. I mean have not yet met a toddler called Bob or Rob for that matter. At some point though the parental instinct to mouth out multiple syllables runs out and they switch from calling the crawler Robert to simply Robbie to Rob. Now speaking of - it is strange that the name sounds like something you would not want Rob to do - i.e. Rob anyone. Then why call someone that? After all Rob Peter to Pay Paul is not exactly a maxim to live a young life? Is it? Perhaps Peter or Paul might want to have a say in it? Then there is this matter of going to the John. Why degrad...

On the go(zay masta) in Japan again

Cool cat the Japanese are Tokyo at dusk  My second visit to this land of the rising sun after almost a decade. Back then clearly I was wet behind the ears product manager and likely didn’t pay attention to all (efficient) things Japanese. But today I did and of course continue to be impressed. It is as much the obvious stuff like on time travel that is both clean and comfortable and all that which makes it possible. The impressive landmark and landscapes that these humans have put together despite their cramped (or because of it) surroundings and precarious geological conditions could amaze a novice architect among us. But it’s also the little things that someone had to think about which have a phenomenal impact on day to day lives that make the Japanese stand apart. Below are few random examples- 1. Providing a very fine machined wooden toothpick in every packet of wooden chopsticks. The said chapsticks are simply set on the To Go counter of any food vendor/ convenience store wher...