Room

ROOM               B+                  

Ireland  Canada  (118 mi)  2015)  d:  Lenny Abrahamson      Official site

One of the most devastating films you could possibly see, not at all easy to endure, leaving viewers emotionally drained and exhausted afterwards, though in the process making the appalling subject matter feel like essential viewing.   Based on a 2010 novel by the same name from Emma Donoghue, who also provided the screenplay, ROOM is a fictionalized recreation seemingly inspired by real life sexual imprisonment cases like Josef Fritzl who kept his own daughter imprisoned in a hidden cellar for 24-years, sexually abusing her the entire time, or Natascha Kampusch and Sabine Dardenne, all survivors of the worst abduction cases imaginable.  A follow up to Abrahamson’s uniquely compelling 2014 Top Ten List #10 Frank , whose expertise appears to be examining the lives of damaged souls, it doesn’t take long to figure out what we’re dealing with is a trapped existence, as the world onscreen identified as “Room” is a windowless 10-by-10 foot space with a skylight above that is too high to reach.  Inside are a mother and child, with Brie Larson from Short Term 12 (2013) as Ma trying to make life as normal as possible for her young 4-year old son Jack (Jacob Tremblay) who has lived his entire life here.  What’s immediately distinctive is the discovery that this world is seen through young Jack’s eyes, providing his own voiceover narration, where this is all he knows, where he’s learned to tell the difference between life in Room and life on television, which is an invented reality, but he has no conception whatsoever of a world outside.  With his long hair below the shoulders that constantly gets in his face, the film immerses us in his mood shifts and daily routines, peppering his mom with incessant questions all day while they do morning exercises, making him run back and forth from one side to the other, play games together, sing songs, share a bath, eat rather common meals that Jack grows tired of from time to time, while Ma reads him bedtime stories like The Count of Monte Cristo (which deals with a prison escape) that challenge his imagination.  Initially it’s all about establishing the monotonous, unglamorized details of their ordinary existence, where each night Jack says goodnight to his bed, toilet, closet, sink, table, chair, all the things he’s intimately familiar with, and in doing so, provides the extent of this claustrophobic, closed-in world.  It’s heart wrenching to see how Ma has spent every ounce of her energy teaching, nurturing, and entertaining this child who loves to watch Dora the Explorer on TV, limiting the time glued in front of the screen as otherwise they would both end up zombies, though occasionally she’s too depressed to even get out of bed in the morning and can spend hours sometimes simply staring out into space at nothing at all. 

In the evenings, Jack sleeps in the cupboard behind wood shutters as Ma is visited by Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), the one who kidnapped her 7-years ago when she was only 19, who opens a steel fortified door locked by an electronic security code, replenishing their meager food and supplies before forcing himself on her at will while continually reminding her how grateful she should be for what little he does bring, constantly complaining of their added “expense,” as he’s out of work, growing violently irritable and quick-tempered if she actually asks for anything they may need.  Sometimes Jack can be seen counting numbers until he leaves, at which point Ma moves him back to the regular double bed where they sleep.  For his 5th birthday, they make a small cake together, but he’s disappointed there are no candles, growing frustrated and temperamental at times, but what’s explicitly clear is they each give one another a reason to live.  Now that he’s older, she tries to expand the world inside to include the one outside, describing bits and pieces of her childhood for him, but he can’t even imagine what’s on the other side of the walls, as he’s never seen it, where the only outside images come from the television.  When the electric power is turned off, she grows more desperate, forced to eat out of cans where frost can be seen on their breath, so she teaches him how to wiggle out of being trapped inside a rolled-up carpet, writing him a note to hand to someone, explaining what to do once he’s finally on the outside, using him for her planned escape.  From the slowed down pace where there was all the time in the world, like their bath when they were splashing water on each other, this rapidly accelerating pace adds a different dimension, creating increasing tension and dread, as Jack is obviously afraid and doesn’t really understand, where she wraps him in the carpet for old Nick’s next visit, claiming he died during the power outage and needs a proper burial, telling him to find someplace nice, where there’s plenty of trees around, growing hysterical at the mere thought of him inspecting the merchandise, screaming to get him out at once, as she can’t stand the sight, leaving her behind in a shivering state of uncontrolled fear.    

Once outside, Jack’s perspective is shown through oblique and distorted angles, becoming an expression of confusion as he’s thrown into the back of a pickup truck, shown from an aerial view as he tries to wiggle out, replaying his mother’s instructions in his head, told not to jump until the truck comes to a stop and then run towards the first person he can find.  But when he’s finally outside, seeing the expanse of the blue sky above, it’s a spectacular moment of complete and utter incomprehension, impossible to even imagine, like waking up on another planet.  It’s a rare cinematic moment, as it should be filled with wonder and rapturous joy, but he’s driven instead by an insane fear that is crippling and paralyzing, as he can’t control where he is and what he’s doing, as every time he tries to run, he stumbles and falls, allowing an angrily pissed off Old Nick to grab him and snatch the note out of his hand, trying to drag him back to the truck, where Jack’s voice fails him as well, as he can’t cry out, but a guy walking his dog just happens to be there witnessing this odd spectacle, where the barking dog appears to spook Nick, who also runs away in fear, leaving a befuddled kid behind who can’t explain where he lives.  It was a risky plan that surprisingly worked, where a kindly female police officer is called onto the scene to try to sort things out, where Jack remains a ball of confusion in exasperated turmoil, unable to comprehend what he sees, where nothing makes sense to him.  Somehow, Officer Parker (Amanda Brugel) is able to decode Jack’s nearly indecipherable comments, turning into a more recognizable rescue scene, where Jack and his panicked mother remain in a state of shock, transported to a hospital room that may as well be a completely made up world.  The rest is harder to convey, where Ma’s name ironically is Joy, as she just wants to be reunited with her family, though the medical staff recommends a transitionary period of adjustment, but they are whisked off instead to a new house somewhere in front of a throng of well-wishers and television cameras swarming out front, creating an utter spectacle that they’re not ready for just yet.  While Joy guts it out, trying to remain a strong presence, she discovers her own parents are divorced, Joan Allen and William H. Macy, that they don’t live together anymore, instead Grandma is living with a new friend Leo (Tom McCamus), all of which scares the living bejesus out of Jack. 

In something of a surprise, the narrative is extended beyond the rescue, where there is obviously more “behind” the story that the public rarely sees, where there are no easy roads to travel, as instead it’s a mish mosh of guilt, blame, wrong turns and recriminations, not to mention constantly adjusted expectations, where the extraordinary patience displayed by the calmness of the grandparents is in stark contrast to the tumultuous mood swings of Joy and Jack, whose behavior couldn’t be more inconsistent, both likely even more seriously traumatized than the film suggests, which may be the only serious flaw in making this material accessible to the public.  Overly timid and uncommunicative, where men in particular are an intimidating threat, Jack adapts quicker than his mother, where he learns to appreciate the kindness and helpful nature of his grandparents, who offer some of the more tender moments in the film.  Joy, on the other hand, is goaded into doing a misguided television interview for a big wad of badly needed cash, feeling the need for financial independence and not be so dependent on others, but she’s ill-equipped for the consequences, where she’s more in denial than ever about her own emotional fragility, unable to make sense of her parent’s split and the emotional distance that has come between them, wrongly blaming herself, feeling worthless and overly guilty for allowing what happened in the first place, as if it’s her fault, seeing herself more as an abject failure, where now that Jack’s found the helping hand of others, she’s not really needed anymore, going on a downward spiral where at some point she simply collapses, requiring extensive hospitalization, where Jack for the first time in his life must fend for himself without her.  It’s a portrait of unbearable sadness, where outside the Room there is so much space to fill, where both are overcome by the vastness of it all that literally overwhelms them with a crushing force they can’t hold off, where it seems there are too few therapists present, as this should be a standard part of the recovery process, but they’re expected to carry the weight of the world on their own.  While we are witness to really standout performances throughout, there’s a beautifully poignant reunification scene between the mother and son when Jack expresses an interest in returning to the Room, where he misses it.  Under police presence, surrounded by evidence tape, it’s hard for Jack to believe that this cramped, miniscule box was his entire universe for the first years of his life, where he remembers it as being so much more, but gone are all the drawings and personal attachments that made it feel like home, where all that’s left is a starkly barren storage shed that has been emptied of all its contents, where silently, under cover of a softly falling snow, they hold hands and walk into the uncertain future together.   

Prince Avalanche

PRINCE AVALANCHE           B+                

USA  (94 mi)  2013  ‘Scope  d:  David Gordon Green

True love is like a ghost. Everyone talks about it, but few have ever seen it.    

I reap the rewards of solitude… I write letters to your sister, I read, I paint, I sew, I had a cat, so I used to take care of my pet, before it was killed. I have a lot of prescription medications, but I try not to use them.

—Alvin (Paul Rudd)

Here’s to fire in our hearts. Drink up boys. I love the impurities. Mother may I? Yes I may!      —Truck driver (Lance LeGault)

Thank God in heaven that David Gordon Green is back to making indie movies, and this is a beaut…gorgeously sublime, beautifully shot by Green’s longtime cinematographer Tim Orr, a film about making something out of nothing.  The inspiration comes from the devastating aftermath of a 1987 central Texas wildfire laying waste to 43,000 acres, destroying 1600 homes.  Set in the following year, the trees remain starkly barren, but there’s plenty of growth in the underbrush.  Largely philosophical, yet told in a naturalistic manner, perhaps on the surface this is the most simplistic film Green’s ever made, but filled with implications and moral conflicts.  Adapted from a Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson Icelandic movie entitled EITHER WAY (2011), though one is not exactly sure how this rather awkwardly medieval American title was chosen (though there is a reference to a prince who has been banished from his kingdom), sounding a bit more like one of the Merry Men in Robin Hood, though this film has a modernist 20th century bent to it, feeling more like something out of the existential absurdity of Beckett or Ionescu.  The film is about two poor bastards who are stuck working out in the open on a roadside highway construction crew helping rebuild roads cutting straight through the natural devastation, whose job is to paint the yellow lines on the newly paved asphalt over an endless stretch of highway, then glue street reflectors in between, while also placing reflector signposts along the way.  Living a rustic life in a two-man tent along the side of the road, Alvin (Paul Rudd) is the more serious senior partner, the roadside boss, while his underling Lance (Emile Hirsch) shows little aptitude for living outdoors, behaving more like a kid with attention deficit disorder, claiming he’s horny all the time and can’t wait to get back to the city during his time off on weekends.      

Shot in just 16 days, the film is a minimalist display of an economy of means, opening with an extended wordless sequence where the paramount expression throughout is David Wingo’s superb musical score written for the instrumental accompaniment of the Austin-based band Explosions in the Sky, where we immediately rediscover this director’s natural affinity for poetic expression, beautifully balancing sound and image before a single word is spoken.  Despite occasional retreats back into silence, this is a dialogue driven character study that is haunted by the natural environment that envelops them.  Neither character easily expresses their emotions, both hiding behind a façade of convention, where Alvin pretends to know what he’s doing, as it sounds like he always has a reasonable plan, but he’s undercut by his own lack of spontaneity and fun, while Lance is a happy-go-lucky kid that only thinks about sex, as if it’s the only inner drive that matters, yet he also has a contemplative side that he never admits to, as it has little to do with how to score with women.  As these two guys spend every waking hour together, it’s only natural they’d eventually get on each other’s nerves, which parallels the boredom and monotony of carrying out the same repetitive task over and over again, day after day, where the tedium keeps them on edge as well.  While these are the surface realities, the film actually explores the human drama taking place inside each of their lives, where they couldn’t be more different, as Alvin has to plan his every move, while Lance just goes with the flow, relying on his natural instincts to carry him through.  While their lives are slowly evolving, there are subtle intrusions from outside forces that continually alter the landscape just enough to keep the characters (and the audience) off balance, where in one of the more curious sections, in the ruins of a burned out home, Alvin acts out his imaginary good life with his future wife.          

Perhaps most fun are the surprise visits by aging truck driver Lance LeGault, (who died during the making of the film, receiving a dedication notice in the final credits), who hauls heavy loads through the construction zone, often stopping to hand out bottles of moonshine to the work crew while also dishing out various pearls of wisdom before disappearing into the night.  Most mysterious are the repeated appearances by a ghostlike Joyce Payne as The Lady, an elderly woman pained by the fact she lost everything in a fire that destroyed her home, where all that’s left are quickly disappearing memories.  “Sometimes I think that I’m digging in my own ashes.”  Initially viewed by Alvin, who helps her search for lost belongings in the wreckage of her home, later she has a near apparition appearance with the Truck driver, who refuses to acknowledge her presence, though they are often seen together by Alvin and Lance.  In fact, by the end, they both feel like ghosts in denial of their own existence.  Serving as an unlikely interconnection, symbolic of their own as yet undetermined future, caught in the purgatory of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, an inescapable hell on earth, the aging couple’s fading illusions serve as a reminder that our young friends are heading for a similar catastrophe, as Alvin doesn’t understand what his own girlfriend really wants, while Lance continually idealizes his perfect companion.  The dreams of both are heading for certain destruction unless they drop all pretensions and somehow start to actually care about the lives of others.  Afraid to leave their selfish comfort zones, both couldn’t be more vulnerable and awkwardly naked on display out in the middle of the emptiness of a desolate landscape that somehow retains its illuminating vibrancy.  Through a wall of branchless trees still standing, a thriving forest remains in spite of the apocalyptic signs of destruction.  Similarly, when all hope is lost, these two numbskulls literally rise from the ashes and have the chance to walk upon a new day.  There are no illusions that anything will get any better, but having shared and endured each other’s most tragic flaws, they seem better prepared to meet whatever lies beyond the curve of the road and face the unexpected future.