Diksha Sundriyal
Starring Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay as Joy and Jack, ‘Room’ looks into the relationship between a boy and his mother under highly extenuating circumstances. What sets Jack apart from other boys his age is that he has never been outside the room he was born into. His mother was abducted when she was young by a man named Old Nick. Since then, she has been alone in the room before Jack came along. They have made their own world inside the room, but Joy eventually finds a way to get them out. Even then, they find it a bit hard to shake off the place where they spent such a long time.
Joy Spends Seven Years Inside the Room Before Escaping
A lot had already happened by the time the movie opened. We meet Jack when he is already five years old and has convinced himself that there is nothing else outside the room. Beyond its confines is space; he and his mother are the only real people in the world (apart from Old Nick, who only comes at night). While a normal five-year-old wouldn’t have this view of the world, it makes sense for Jack to think that way because he has never stepped outside Room. He was born there and has been there for five long years. Fortunately, by the time he turns six, he has escaped the place and is embracing the huge world he is now a part of.
Stepping out of Room is a huge change for Jack because he is entering something new. For Joy, however, it means finally getting her life back. She was seventeen years old when she was abducted by Old Nick. She tells Jack about it while trying to convince him that there is a real world outside Room, and they must escape it. She had been walking to school when she was approached by Old Nick, who needed help with his injured dog. Believing that she was helping a person in need, especially because it was a dog, she followed him, and finding his window of opportunity, he kidnapped her. She woke up to find herself in a soundproof shed, and that was the end of her normal life.
Joy reveals that once, she tried to flee. She attacked Old Nick while he was entering the room, but before she could get through the door, he attacked her back and injured her hand, which hasn’t healed even now. Soon after, she got pregnant with Jack, and with an added responsibility, the prospects of escaping were reduced drastically. That is until Jack got old enough to help her plan something new.
Joy spends seven years trapped inside the place. She is 24 years old when she finally steps out of it. This means that she had Jack when she was 19. In the book by Emma Donoghue, on which the movie is based, Joy is nineteen years old when she is abducted by Old Nick. In the movie, this detail was changed to seventeen because if she were nineteen, it would make her an adult, which means the FBI wouldn’t be involved in the case. While, eventually, this doesn’t play as big a role in the story as one would imagine, it is one of the things the filmmakers found important enough to change. In the book, Joy is 26 when she escapes her captor for good. For Jack, however, things remain pretty much the same.
Interestingly, the story doesn’t stop at Jack and Joy finally getting their freedom. Donoghue wanted the story to be more focused on Jack and Joy rather than their captivity, which meant that their freedom could pertain to getting a happily ever after. Consequently, we spend a few more months with the characters as they try to adjust to their new lives. This transition presents a stark contrast between who Joy used to be before she was taken and who she is now that she has returned. These few months outside of Room also show the psychological impact that the past seven years have had on Joy and how physically leaving Room doesn’t necessarily mean that she has left it mentally.
Read More: Is Room (2015) Based on a True Story?
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