Room

Lenny Abrahamson’s 2015 film arrived through an unusual adaptation chain. Emma Donoghue wrote the screenplay herself before the novel was published in 2010, and turned down offers that came once the book appeared. When Abrahamson read the novel and sent her a ten page fan letter arguing it should be filmed, he did not know a script existed; she then pushed for him to direct. The space was engineered too. Room was built at Pinewood Toronto Studios at eleven feet by eleven feet, with every piece made removable by production designer Ethan Tobman so the crew could work inside the box. Brie Larson consulted a trauma specialist and a nutritionist, kept to a restricted diet and avoided sunlight. She and Jacob Tremblay spent over three weeks together beforehand, and the scenes inside took five weeks. Tremblay was too young to read the script, so each scene was explained to him singly. The thing to know in advance is structural. The escape happens around the midpoint and the hard part begins afterwards. Freedom is not the climax; the adjustment that follows is the subject. Larson won an Academy Award. A fit if you want a story spending its second half on what comes after rescue. Not a fit if captivity relayed through a small child is more than you want.