by Ben Hargreaves
It’s a brave person that creates art from a subject as dark as the forced imprisonment of a woman and the child that results from her rape but that is exactly what Emma Donoghue attempted, twice. She first wrote the novel, shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize, and then wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation. Lenny Abrahamson (Frank, What Richard Did) shoulders the monumental task of bringing the story to life and succeeds in creating a film that is nothing short of a masterpiece. The film handles the topic with sensitivity and optimism in the face of human cruelty, allowing it to transcend the bleak subject matter to become a wider story upon resilience and the love of a mother for her child.
The film, like the novel, adopts the point of view of the child, Jack (Jacob Tremblay), and, for the first half of the film, this allows the film to play out in the style of a thriller. When ‘Old Nick’ (Sean Bridgers) enters the room, the camera peers out between the wardrobe slats from Jack’s perspective and thereby places the audience in the same position of hiding from the threatening figure. It’s a technique that adds much to build up of tension as the audience is made to feel the child’s fear and vulnerability, which escalates when Jack becomes the centre of their plan to escape. The eventual escape attempt is magnificently directed, as an overawed Jack witnesses the outside world for the first time but still must escape from the clutches of Old Nick. It is a scene that is not so much breath taking as one where you find yourself unconsciously holding your breath from the fear of being discovered – that is how powerfully the drama draws in the audience.
Without revealing too much, what happens after the attempt by Jack to escape is a focused human drama that takes the tension and the unthinkable ugliness of the first half of the film and crafts it into something beautiful and relatable. This success can be partially attributed to two spectacular performances from Brie Larson, as the mother, and Jacob Tremblay, as Jack; they build a relationship together that feels organic and where the emotional punch of the film rests on the familial bond between the two that feels palpably real. There will be much talk of the other Oscar contenders for the forthcoming award show but this is one film that will transcend beyond the award season to go down as a classic.
[imdb id=”tt3170832″]