Powerful Room surprises with life-affirming message

Based on Emma Donoghue’s book by the same name, the Oscar-nominated (for best picture and best actress) Room might be the most pro-life movie ever made. But don’t expect such a billing for a film that never broaches the subject of abortion.

“Room,” as Jack (Jacob Tremblay) and his mother, Ma (Brie Larson), call their soundproof enclosure, is not much larger than a prison cell. It contains only the basic necessities for long-term survival: tub, refrigerator, stove, toilet, bed. Old Nick (Sean Bridgers) abducted Ma—her name is actually Joy—when she was 17 and has kept her confined in sexual servitude for seven years.

As the film opens, Jack is celebrating his fifth birthday, an unmistakable testament to an individual’s personhood. From the film’s first scene, Jack is the answer to abortion defenders’ prized would-be stumper, “But what if the woman is raped?”

Ma has taken great pains to keep Jack physically and mentally healthy. She encourages his imagination, but teaches him the difference between real people and fantasy characters. Ma has never cut Jack’s hair—now halfway down his back—telling him his strength is in it.

But she finds her strength in him.

“You saved me,” this saintly sufferer, humble queen of mothers, whispers to her son. Ma’s marvelous assertion, which she repeats near the film’s end, is more than a tender moment. It’s an acknowledgement that mother and child both find life—even if begun in the most terrible of circumstances—in the sharing of a small, intimate space.

Because director Lenny Abrahamson tells the story through Jack’s eyes, the first half of Room (rated R for language)—long periods of claustrophobic routine interrupted by sporadic assaults—unfolds with a certain lightness. Abrahamson shields viewers from the worst of the details, just as Ma has always done for Jack.

After prior unsuccessful escape attempts, Joy conceives a desperate ruse. So mundane are the escape’s elements, though, many viewers might not recognize in them a stunning metaphor for Jack’s birth. This scene, worth the price of admission, deserves in-depth study.

The final third of the film consists of recovery and normalization. Joy reunites with her family, faces a hounding press, and travels an uneven road to healing. Jack learns how to navigate stairs and feels the warm tongue of what once was a fairy tale.

A fascinating sequence comes when a TV personality interviews Joy about her ordeal. The interviewer asks Joy if she ever told her captor to take Jack after he was born and abandon him. Joy gasps in shock. The film then nails mainstream media’s many spiteful prejudices when the interviewer persists, “Did you do the best thing for him?”

Despite the strong pro-life undercurrent, interviews with Donoghue and Abrahamson suggest neither intended to make a statement about abortion. It’s as if the film has a life of its own.

Just like every child.