CLAUSTROPHOBIA – Movie Reviews of Room and The 33 by Howard Casner

First, a word from our sponsors: I am now offering a new service: so much emphasis has been given lately to the importance of the opening of your screenplay, I now offer coverage for the first twenty pages at the cost of $20.00.  For those who don’t want to have full coverage on their screenplay at this time, but want to know how well their script is working with the opening pages, this is perfect for you.  I’ll help you not lose the reader on page one. 

 

Ever wonder what a reader for a contest or agency thinks when he reads your screenplay? Check out my new e-book published on Amazon: Rantings and Ravings of a Screenplay Reader, including my series of essays, What I Learned Reading for Contests This Year, and my film reviews of 2013. Only $2.99. http://ow.ly/xN31r

 

and check out my Script Consultation Services: http://ow.ly/HPxKE

Warning: SPOILERS

room 1Room, the new somewhat minimalist film written by Emma Donoghue (from her own novel) and directed somewhat minimally by Lenny Abrahamson (who also was responsible for cult fave Frank), is, like such movies as Vertigo and Boogie Nights, a before and after film, a movie in which something happens about midway through that divides the story into two neat little parts.

For Room, the first half dramatizes the story of a character called Ma and her six year old son, Jack. Seven years earlier, Ma was abducted and kept prisoner in a large garden shed by a bearded man called Old Nick. Jack was born into captivity and, in fact, does not know there is a world outside, having been told by Ma that there’s nothing on the other side of the four walls. Jack is so young, it simply doesn’t occur to him to ask that if that were so, then where does Old Nick come from each night when he visits, and where does he go when he leaves.

The second part dramatizes Ma and Jack’s escape (a very taught and edge of your seat set of scenes, even though you do also wonder why someone who is as clever as Old Nick in setting up the shed could also be so stupid) and what happens when Ma and Jack rejoin the outside world. Read the rest of this entry »