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It’s really hard to genre-label this one. Is it a sex pervert horror story? A tender story of a mother’s love for her son? A dysfunctional family drama? Or maybe a little of each. Screenwriter Emma Donoghue (from her novel) and director Lenny Abrahamson don’t really care. Actually – and quite remarkably – all of them combine quite smoothly into a gripping thriller that is satisfying on that level. And yet, by its conclusion, it’s clear that the film has a provocative underlying theme that is what the filmmakers want us to leave with. To me, this is the most interesting aspect of the film.

The voice of a child, Jack, opens the film, and he narrates throughout. Jack is played – unforgettably – by Jacob Tremblay. It is Jack’s fifth birthday. He is a beautiful child, with long hair flowing past his shoulders. We soon learn the bizarre background story: Jack’s mother, Joy, played by Brie Larson, having been raised in an upper-middle class home, was kidnapped by a man when she was seventeen and locked inside a one-room shed that cannot be opened from the inside. Joy bore her captor’s child, Jack, and has raised him herself. The man comes periodically to deliver food, and for sex with her. Jack has never seen the world outside “Room”; it is the universe to him.

More than half of the film is the story of their escape, and it is very well-made; thrillingly acted, with Joy desperately teaching the confused child her bizarre plan, there is no let-up in the tension until it is concluded, satisfyingly.

Once Joy is reunited with her parents, however, there is a major shift. It focuses on Joy’s struggle to reacquaint herself with her family, and is complicated by the re-emergence of conflicts that were never resolved. For this section, the tension is of a different sort. We wonder if Joy will be able to regain the primary role in Jack’s development. The film concludes with hope, however; mother and son confront the past they shared and, symbolically, banish its memory together in the film’s final scene.

But the most original and intriguing part of the story is absent from this summary. It is so subtly rendered, in fact, that many might miss it altogether, as I’ve seen in some reviews. The world that Joy introduces Jack to is one where men no longer dominate but are increasingly dependent upon women, who are able to assume control because of their superior ability and intelligence. Except for a few brief walk-ons by adult males – a doctor, a cop, a tutor – none of the adult male characters seem capable of functioning independently.

Joy’s father, played by William H. Macy, is divorced from her mother and now lives far away. We are shown, shockingly, that he can’t even force himself to embrace his own grandson because the child came from his daughter’s defilement. As for Leo, the man Joy’s mother married after her divorce, he seems to do nothing all day except smile benignly and walk his cute dog. But the sorriest of the lot is the abductor himself, a lummox so dim that Jack’s escape is almost comical in its simplicity.

In stark contrast are the women: Joy, self-reliant, resilient and emotionally giving; her mother, played by Joan Allen, who immediately takes firm control of Jack’s upbringing after Joy temporarily withdraws; even the policewoman who, despite the ridicule of her dumb male partner, elicits from Jack the vital information that quickly leads to the capture of the abductor, and Joy’s freedom.

Clearly, the symmetry is not accidental. Although Jack has matured enough to accept living outside of “Room”, which is the only reality he’d ever known, we wonder how he will adjust to the strange world that replaced it. Here, Donoghue is directly challenging us. Are these wimps the only male role models left for him? I think her answer is….yes, and a good thing too. The absence of a strong  adult male in the film supports her belief that society is in a transitional stage, and that women will dominate in the future. It is a story where only the female characters show any ability at all to meet life’s challenges, and that they succeed without the help of men, who are pretty much useless.

One trouble with this premise – and an obvious one – is that, even if men are being left behind in the 21st century, they are definitely not as harmlessly resigned to that fate as Donoghue suggests. The loss of their dominating status in economic and social institutions is causing a violent upheaval in society, as shown by the increase in mental illness, crime and suicide. The statistics bear this out. It goes without saying that these conditions will make it even harder for young boys like Jack to feel confident about their future.

But Donoghue is not having any of this. The transition may be painful, she seems to say, but society will be the better for having women take control, and men will learn to accept, and even to enjoy their reduced status. Whether or not society actually goes in that direction, Donoghue has certainly found rich material for the movies and, speaking strictly as a film lover, I encourage her. In fact, there are two strong reasons why one or more sequels to Room would be a must-see.  The first is that the premise is original and provocative and that she has teamed with a director, Abrahamson,  who is both skilled and supportive of her vision. But the second reason is even more promising:

it is that Jacob Tremblay is a “once-in-a-generation discovery”, and that to follow him throughout his youth  in Donoghue’s imagined future is just an awesome idea!  By age twelve, in about three years, Tremblay could be showing us how Jack adapts to this brave-new-world as a pre-teen. In Room, Tremblay’s sudden flashes of defiance of his mother were startling; we saw a tenacious desire for independence. Will the adults in his life try to suppress this, or encourage it? And will his years in captivity affect how he relates to other children? Moreover, if it’s true that Donoghue is inspired to go further with the idea of a female-dominant society – and it seems to me she does – it makes artistic, as well as commercial sense to stick with a winning formula.

At this point, another recent, and highly regarded film should come to mind. Richard Linklater’s Boyhood took the unprecedented approach of following a six-year-old boy’s growth into young manhood by using the same child actor at different stages of development.

Once the novelty wore off, however, the film faltered. The story was dramatically weak – except for the scenes focusing on Patricia Arquette’s character – and the actor, Ellar Coltrane, was just not a strong enough presence.

I think Room has a far better premise for using the same technique, and Jacob Tremblay is so charismatic that he can take his audience with him on such an extended journey.

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