When I was small I only knew small things, now I am five and I know about everything. - Jack (Room)

When I was small I only knew small things, now I am five and I know about everything.

What happens when the world a 5 year old kid imagined and lived in starts expanding at an inconceivable speed?

Room is all about accepting changes in life while trying to hold on to the familiarity of the past. It’s that easy and difficult.  Jack, (Jacob  Tremblay)  knows nothing about the world except the small room in which he was born and his only human contact for everything is MA (Brie Larson). Movie opens with his birthday and he beautifully narrates how he came in to the world. The crux of the movie is established in the first line of his narration

‘Once upon a time, before I came, you cried and cried and watched TV all day, until you were a zombie. But then I zoomed down from Heaven, through skylight, into Room. And I was kicking you from the inside. Boom boom! And then I shot out onto Rug with my eyes wide open, and you cut the cord and said, hello Jack!’

Jack is a savior and he beautifully plays the part. There are instances in the movie where you’d want to pull the kid out from the screen and wish the agony, sheer confusion and situations he is made to deal with stop. That’s the power this movie has, you wish events stop unfolding themselves but it doesn’t stop.

 For Jack the only thing real is MA and all that exists in the room. Old Nick is his first contact to the ugly reality of the world. His lessons in dealing with real world begin with Old Nick: the uncalled visitor, who gets him and MA food and who hurts them. It’s with Old Nick’s second visit, post his birthday that he is made to confront the reality. The story that he grew up believing for four years isn’t true, there is a life outside the room, people on the TV are real and not magic, and there is a world on the other side of the wall.

Like every other kid he wants to believe the story told to him is real and when MA tells him the other story he demands ‘I want a different story’ but there isn’t and he is forced to deal with the other one he just heard about. The reality sweeps in with such a pace, it turns his world upside down. The two scenes where MA plans his escape are heart wrenching. He is an obedient, brave kid who despite all the confusion and uncertainty of what lies ahead agrees to help his MA. The scene where Old Nick pulls the rug out and MA is pretending Jack is dead is one of the most difficult scenes to watch. Brie Larson is something to watch out for. There are ordeals and post effects of ordeals in the movie that are piercing.

When Jack is pulled out of the room in the van, all he has with him is the fading voice of his MA in his ears and her bad tooth in his mouth. The vastness of the sky and the trees make him forget the instruction, wiggle-out, jump, run and Help. He somehow makes it but forgets things, reality is too much for him to bear that it makes him forget his MA’s real name. Somehow they are saved and he is united with his mom but the vastness of the world keeps haunting him, from watching one familiar face of a loved one to seeing uncountable faces of strangers is too much for him. His MA has to go through similar ordeal, world is no longer the same. Life has moved on, her parents have separated, her father doesn’t like Jack and then there is a fatal interview which makes her question if she did the right thing as a mother who was held captive. Her frustration when she finds it difficult to make Jack like the real world shows her helplessness. There is a scene where she yells at her mother and tells ‘Maybe if your voice saying "be nice" hadn't been in my head, then maybe I wouldn't have helped the guy with the fucking sick dog!’ makes one want to think would you teach your kids to be nice to strangers? Jack starts accepting the real world when he is separated from his MA and he once again becomes strong for her. ‘There are so many things out here. And sometimes, it's scary, but that's okay, because it's still just you and me.’ He slowly learns to deal with the world because it is still about him and his MA. If there is one thing that is still familiar and the same in this big world is his MA.

He later asks to visit Room but that too has changed. He tells his MA it can’t be the room because it didn’t have a door. The place he lived in got altered itself, its open, the roof is gone and it doesn’t even remotely look like room. Jack says his final goodbye to Room and asks MA to say goodbye. Their good bye to room is coming back to reality and dealing with the same question again where do we go when the only place familiar to us has altered itself? In some ways Riley from Inside Out and Jack are dealing with same thing, the loss of familiarity but their struggles are on a different tangent all together.

If this movie doesn’t awaken your dead sleeping heart I don’t know what will.