What ensues is best seen and not spoiled, but the outcome is a successful one. Old Nick is becoming more dangerous, and what might be best for both of them is if she hatches a plan to get out of the room before it is too late. While Jack seems like an utterly normal five-year-old, it dawns on Ma that he is becoming increasingly more curious. That we share Jack's limited perspective makes the encounters all the more unnerving. How else could she withstand the regular visits from her imprisoner, dubbed Old Nick (pl ayed by Sean Bridgers) most likely because he comes at night and sometimes brings much-needed supplies? In return, Old Nick forces himself upon her regularly as Jack holes up in a wardrobe, supposedly asleep but usually awake during these noisy episodes. For her, Jack is her anchor and her reason to carry on. She is endlessly resourceful, turning cardboard toilet paper rolls and egg shells connected by string into playthings. She ignores a painful rotting tooth in her mouth until it falls out and it immediately becomes one of her son’s most prized possessions. But to him, the room represents reality in its totality while TV is just make-believe.Īs for Ma, her whole focus is on Jack’s well-being and rarely her own. He is an avid watcher of “Dora the Explorer” and her animated adventures. Thanks to Ma’s unwavering efforts, he is a bright, energetic, healthy bundle of happiness, well-versed in at least some literature-he knows who Jack the Giant Killer is as well as Samson, a hero he relates to since his own hair hangs beyond his shoulders.

But the room’s sun, as well as the moon and the stars, is Jack, who has never known any other environment. The 11-by-11 box of a living space that they share at least has a small skylight that allows some semblance of nature to enter.

Director Lenny Abrahamson (working from an adapted script by Donoghue) could not ask for a better pairing than Brie Larson, who continues to find new ways to astonish with her raw honesty, and Jacob Tremblay, a small wonder whose greatest gift is a preternatural ability to never seem as though he is acting.

The first two-thirds of “ Room” greatly depend on the ability to build a believable, primal connection between its central characters, known as Ma and Jack, one that at times feels as if the umbilical cord has yet to be severed. “ Room's' power to touch audiences, as it clearly did when it won the People’s Choice Award at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, lies in the film’s delicately rendered and highly relatable core relationship. It's why this small-of-budget-yet large-of-heart-drama is being pegged as a deserved awards season contender.

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