This film is based on a well-reviewed book. I have not read the book though I have heard that it is told from the child's point of view. The film is the same way.
Joy (Brie Larson) was a typical seventeen-year-old girl who ran track but she was too nice. She really was. An older man needed help finding his lost dog and just like that, she was kidnapped. This was the past. The film starts seven years after she was taken, on the morning of her son's birthday. Jack (Jacob Tremblay) is a force to be reckoned with. The shed is where he has spent his whole life, old Nick, that rat bastard (Sean Bridgers) built especially for them. He is nasty, only coming at night, bringing limited supplies to sustain his captives. The room contains a sink, tub, toilet and wardrobe, where Jack hides when Old Nick comes for his disgusting visits. Joy does everything she can to protect her son and she is fiercely protective. Though he is five, she still nurses him on occasion. It isn't until Old Nick cuts the power to the shed when Joy decides that Jack is old enough for the truth, that there is a whole wide world out there, not just what he sees on the TV. Killing Old Nick isn't a viable option because he is the only one who knows the code to the shielded shed. First, faking illness doesn't work so Joy urges him to fake death and rolls Jack up in the rug which makes Old Nick cart him away in the back of his truck, the same one that supposedly lead Joy to her currant fate. It was some tense moments but Jack does fall from the back of the truck but Old Nick sees this and tries to cart Jack back, but fortunately, a passer by insists on calling the police and eventually Jack helps the police find the shed which means that Joy is rescued.
Unfortunately, Joy has struggles in the real world, looking at old pictures from high school make her sick, as all of her friends would lead normal lives, nothing happened to them. Her parents (Joan Allen and William H. Macy) have divorced and her father lives far away, plus, he can't even look at Jack. Jack also has his struggles, not talking to anyone but his mother at first though he slowly starts to open up. However, it is an ill-fated interview, which Joy insisted on so she could have money to leave that sends her over the edge. The interviewer asks Joy that when Jack was born, why didn't she consider asking Old Nick to leave the baby at a hospital because then he at least would have had a normal life.
Joy may not have considered suicide while she was in captivity, but she does now. forcing her milk to finally dry up. And back to the hospital she goes, with Jack remaining with her mother and Nancy's boyfriend, Leo (Tom McCamus). Eventually, Joy does recover and is released from the hospital. Jack had his grandmother cut his long (overly long) hair, where he kept his strength, just as Sampson did, and have her give it to Joy. She tells him that, once again, he saved her life.
They do go back to visit the room again, once Jack's whole world. But now it seems so small and empty to him, he no longer misses it nearly as much as he once did. They can finally truly start to move on.
Though this is a great film, with realistic sets and great camera angles, truly showing the world from Jack's point of view, some parts just should have been more intense. And though Larson is brilliant and deserves the accolades that she is getting, she was right with what she said upon receiving her Golden Globe, she is only half the film, Tremblay is the other half and the fact that he was left off the Oscar nomination list is a crime. He was great and the film revolved around him. I felt cheated that he was not given the credit he deserved. I also felt that William H. Macy should have been given a chance to redeem himself as his character is horribly underdeveloped and not the strength his daughter needs. Fortunately, Allen is great, thank goodness. Allen sees Jack as the boy who saved her daughter, not proof of the hell her daughter went through. Big difference.
This should also be a film of redemption, though Joy didn't feel that way all the time, but eventually Jack got to love the real world and though Joy's life will never be normal, at least Jack's life has the chance and he loves her regardless of her mistakes. She's still his mother and she did the best she could. Sometimes, that is all that matters. Grade: A-
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