Netflix Gets Award-Winning Thriller With Marvel Superstar’s Breakout Role

I fell for Brie Larson in Captain Marvel and hadn’t really seen her in anything before that. Now, watching Scott Pilgrim vs. the World with my daughter, I say, “Oh! That’s Brie Larson!” But she was unmemorable to me at the time.

Once she hit the MCU, of course, I had to go back and watch Room. I knew she had won several awards for her performance, including an Oscar, and that the film itself had been the recipient of several nominations and wins during that award season. 

When you watch Room on Netflix, you’ll see Joy teaching her son to read and do math, making them both cereal for breakfast and top ramen for lunch. You’ll watch them do some floor exercises and play games. And you’ll see them love and snuggle each other throughout.

They go to bed together at night, and the room gets dark. Everything is calm and peaceful until you hear the combination lock on the door engaging and the door opening. 

Joy tells her son to go sleep in the large chest of drawers, sending him away for his safety, as a man, “Old Nick,” enters the room. The audience can discern from the noises that Old Nick is being intimate with Joy, and we learn that Joy has been held captive in this room for seven years.

Old Nick kidnapped her and got her pregnant, which means Jack was born in the room and has only ever lived within these four walls. Room on Netflix unfolds with suspense and a quiet intensity.

Old Nick arrives one day to tell Joy that he has lost his job and won’t be able to afford supplies for Joy and Jack. He cuts the heat and the power in the middle of a harsh winter, and he brings less food over time.

Finally, Joy snaps into the reality that if she doesn’t take action, she and her son will die in this sad box. She begins to reveal to Jack that the outside world is bigger and more beautiful than this room. Until this time, she had led Jack to believe that this room was all there was. 

GFR SCORE

The second half of Room on Netflix has Joy spending hours each day training Jack to escape their prison and set them free. As you bear witness to the relationship between mother and son, you can’t help but worry for him and feel for her. It’s an impossible situation they’re in.

It’s all made so much worse by the fact that Old Nick isn’t violent or aggressive. Instead, he comes across as quietly menacing and controlling. So you never know when or how he’ll snap. 

Watch Room on Netflix to see how Joy and Jack complete this part of their story, what happens to Old Nick, and, really, just to see the incredible acting done by Larons and Tremblay, who clearly have big careers ahead of them. I recommend it to all my film fans out there.