The Room is a drama film directed by Rannard Abrahamson and starring Brie Larson (as mother Joey) and Jacob Trebrey (as jack the child). The film received rave reviews and won several film awards at the 88th Academy Awards for Best Picture.
It is a film that reflects on the impact of experience, environment, family, and social opinion on individual growth and survival. The most unique charm of the film is the extensive use of children's monologues, so that viewers automatically substitute childish children's voices into their own perspectives, and align their thoughts with five-year-old children, so as to intuitively experience the world in the eyes of children, forming a contrast with the adult world.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="85" > reality vs. illusion</h1>
The seventeen-year-old girl was abducted to become the mother of a five-year-old. During the seven years of captivity, the mother concocted a wonderful fairy tale world for his child, so that the child lived under the fairy tale world made up by the mother.
"Good morning, lamp. Good morning, potted. Good morning, TV. Good morning, sink. Good morning, egg snake. Good morning, toilet. Good morning, blankets. Good morning, wardrobe. ”
In the eyes of the child. The universe is this little shack, the sky is the little skylight that looks up, and the world is Mom and other furniture friends. Rats are wonderful playmates who have strayed into the world, and egg snakes (eggshells strung together) are animals that grow longer every day. The culprit, Nick Sr., is a magician who brings unexpected toys every time he appears. His troubles are simply that there are no candles on the birthday cake that can make wishes, and there is no danger of the world.
The large number of close-up shots and facial close-ups used in the film not only create an overall atmosphere of suffocation, depression, and numbness for the audience, but also a true portrayal of the heart of mother Joey. A completely different portrayal from the child Jack.
The large square rooms, the simple and broken furniture, the dim and cold environment, the embarrassing lack of supplies, the mottled and damp walls, and the old Nick were her nightmares, nightmares that she could not escape for seven years, abysses that she could never ignore in her entire life.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="84" > escape vs adventure</h1>
The term room, in this film, is the confinement of space to the individual. The film uses the name of this physical field as a metaphor for the mental journey of Joey's mother and son. Use the dual perspectives of adults and children to interpret the reality and illusion of freedom.
For moms, this training is an escape, an escape. For children, this experience is an adventure, an adventure like the protagonist in a cartoon.
After seven years of captivity and rape, the trajectory of the girl's life has long been turned upside down. The unexpected repetitive life and thoughts of children, which have become habits, sounded the alarm bell for her - she must let the children live healthily.
Jack was confined to a small room, thinking that this was the whole world. The small skylight overhead is the key to the universe for Jack, and for Joey, it is the only direct connection between mother and son and the outside world. The room was an abyss for the mother, a nightmare. But for children, it is the mother's company day and night, and it is a beautiful memory of childhood.
Jack resisted the outside world because he had never seen it before. I was afraid of the "freedom" in my mother's mouth, because I had never experienced freedom. The freer he is in the world his mother has created, the more intense the pain he feels for Joey and the audience.
Slowly, Jack's attitude began to shift. The previous TV was a wonderful box, and everything in the world came from the TV. Later, I learned that turtles, crocodiles, and sharks are all real beings, and people who look like their mothers on reality TV shows are all real beings. The flickering sky, sunlight and shadows on the skylight are real. Mom trained, my adventure, was to escape.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="83" >free vs motherhood</h1>
The host's conversation denounces Joey's selfishness and secretly accuses her of not letting old Nick dump him in the hospital when Jack was born to set him free. And Jack shows the greatness of maternal love in his communication with his grandmother. In a room devoid of vitamins, jeans, and toy cars, Jack has a paradise created by his mother. There, his mother taught him to read, taught him to sing, baked with him, played the game of "pointing that and walking that", brushed his teeth every day, stretched every day, and measured his height every day. In the room, Mom is the center of Jack's world, and Jack is all Joey has. The lack of material did not lead to Jack's mental poverty. On the contrary, after he came out of the room, he quickly adapted to normal life. Jack is endowed with a sound mind by white lies in an unhealthy environment. This is inseparable from Joey's patient teaching, and Joey tells us with his personal actions that freedom and maternal love are not incompatible.
But all this, some social groups do not understand, and even they do not care. The reporter's question completely broke the heart of the young mother. Most of the social groups represented by journalists use a public opinion and a secular perspective that is often more damaging and lethal than the perpetrators inflict on their victims. Sometimes criminals may hurt your body, but society hurts your heart. The deeper captivity for Joy is not this room with only a corner, but a kind of closure to the heart, a complete closure, and a lingering fear of the present and a barrier to tomorrow. Tomorrow and accidents who will come first? Joey didn't know.
But Jack came.
"Once upon a time, before I came, you cried and watched TV all day until you turned into a zombie. Then I descended from the sky, through the skylight, into the room. I kick you inside, thumbs up. I rushed out and landed on the blanket, my eyes wide open. Then you cut the umbilical cord and say, 'Hello, Jack.' ’”
Jack's childish voice says at the beginning of the film.
A child's monologue actually hints a lot. Jack's arrival was a gift from heaven to Joey, and Jack's birth also gave Joey great spiritual comfort.
There's no denying that Joey's maternal love is selfish, and she hasn't chosen a path that seems to make her child happier. But it is also undeniable that her maternal love is also selfless. Because of her protection, Jack just thinks that old Nick is a magician. Because of her patience, Jack's spiritual world is as rich as the spiritual world of other children. Because of her bravery, Jack was saved by Jack himself at the age of five, when his personality could still be shaped.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="46" > collapse vs redemption</h1>
Freedom and maternal love are two factors that are not opposites, which are considered by the public to be opposites. The reporter's grandiose inquiries and public opinion questions crush Joey, and the collapse of the inner world and strong self-denial make him choose to abandon his hard-won life, abandon the people he loves and commit suicide.
Everyone's life is a journey of redemption.
Before Jack walked out of the room, he was a child living under a fairy tale world made up by his mother. When Jack walks out of the room, he is the child who strives to create the world for his mother. During The recovery of Joey's suicide attempt, Jack constantly uses his actions to bring courage to his mother. The long hair that represented the bondage and had been stored for five years was cut off, and it was given to Joey as courage. He communicates bravely with the outside world like a normal child, as if to tell Joey, "Look, I'm fine, I've been taught well by you." He saved Joey's broken heart with his child's bravery and steadfastness.
It's as Grandma said to Joey, "We all have the same power and we transmit strength to each other, and no one can be strong alone." ”
This sentence made me and my friends feel very deeply, there will always be bad people in the world, bad things, make us sad, or fall into the spiritual nobody's land. But Jack's relief and smile, the sun and freedom outside the room, the friendliness and kindness of the next-door neighbors, for a moment made us feel that everything in the world was not so bad. I think Joey thinks the same way. Everyone must have experienced bad things, because there are shadows and corners in the world, and we need to think about it in reverse, and the shadow exists precisely because the other side of it is sunlight.
In fact, we can also become the "Jack" of many people.
Text/Yi Zilin
Editor/Xiao Yang
The pictures in this article are from the internet