a review of 房间

Feb 23/28 Watched this one in lieu of watching the Oscars, and (no offense to the winners and losers, I just kind of hate awards shows these days) I don't regret that decision one bit. As much as I love Brie Larson in everything I've seen her in, this was one that I'd put off seeing or even reading about just because of the subject matter. I'd closely followed the 2013 Cleveland kidnapping case and was somewhat hesitant to see a dramatic film borrowing key details from those horrific crimes. I was glad to see that the circumstances of Joy's captivity and abuse were handled tastefully, and that the focus was on her relationship with Jack, and his way of processing the world. The movie nicely defied a lot of my expectations about how a story like this could be told, and a lot of it comes down to a great pair of performances by Larson and Jacob Tremblay as Jack. The latter gives an incredibly natural, yet measured feat of acting (and no doubt directing) that feels almost like a magic trick.