Room (*****)

The Allegory of the Cave was a parable I often heard about in school and lectures but could barely grasp a way to picture it in reality. To live in a darkened cave and perceive shadows as the entire reality of being is a stretch to imagine but logical for the purposes of the lesson. Who knew I would one day find a movie that explains it in simple terms, as black and white as can be and in a style that is nearly child-like.

ROOM is obviously the story of a woman imprisoned, locked away in a shed by her kidnapper for 7 years, during which time she has a son, Jack, and raises her as best as she can given the circumstances. Ma, as she is called, teaches Jack to read, write, clean, cook, but most of all imagine. In this tiny shed, the "room" they frequently reference, is the entire universe, and out of fear or sadness in his finding out the truth, she tells him that there is nothing else but this tiny place in existance. "Old Nick," their captor, supplies then with weekly rations of food and TV, but for Jack, the images he sees on that TV are all fake, and Nick gets food and medicine from the land inside the TV. Being born and raised entirely in a 10-foot squared space, who's to tell him differently?

The kind of wonder that comes with a movie like this is not the intricacy or set-up of the characters, but rather the intimately real feeling we get when watching it. The movie takes many turns, and it's no surprise they escape in one of the more beautiful moments I think I have seen in a movie (Jack for the first time in his life rolls out of a dirty carpet to see an entire panorama of sky and trees and road. The scenery is anything but beautiful, but the look on his face would have us believe this is a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle). From here on out, the movie dives into a more traditional drama involving the reuniting of Ma's family and the emotional implications such a tragedy can have in the long run.

Brie Larson has been getting most of the attention for her difficult work in the film, and she is surely admirable (a fragile and yet determined personality that's rough around the edges we also saw from her in "Short Term 12"). This is really a two-person show, and the young actor playing Jack (Jacob Tremblay) is nothing short of miraculous. We hear his opening narration, a sweet, high voice that tells us about the world he knows to be real, and then later in the film the same voice telling us how he has learned about the size of Earth and ponders why we don't fall off the face of it. It's remarkable for a 9 year old to reveal such truths in a movie like this as convincingly, and even the smallest gestures he uses are absolutely heartbreaking and true (the time he first meets a dog, or perhaps the way he carefully nurses a tooth in his hand while sleeping). Tremblay gives serious competition to become potentially the youngest Oscar winner in history, but looking at some of the best from the past (Ana Paquin and Tatum O'Neal), he stands level-headed as perhaps the finest performance of the year.

In a movie that could have been dark, Room explores hard subject matter with a light hand along the lines of "Life is Beautiful," another film that shows the power of a strong parent protecting their child from emotional damage. The story follows so many absolutes and yet flows with a poetry that makes it feel like a timeless story. Near the end, we hear Larson's character say "I'm not a good enough ma," to which Jack innocently replies "but you're ma." If that isn't one of the most gorgeous summaries of life, I don't know what is. Life has ups and downs and wins and losses. How we choose to live in it is entirely our own decision.

(Awards potential: Best Picture, Best Actress (Larson), Best Actor (Tremblay), Best Supporting Actress (Joan Allen), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Original Score)