Film discussion: Room

Whatever. Having relatively little Puritan in my soul, I’ll just take it and be grateful. Especially when it makes relatively light work of stepping out to The Music Hall to see a movie.

And what a movie we have in store on Tuesday!

Room is a movie made from a well-loved book about a boy who has spent the first five years of his life in a 10-foot by 10-foot room. He lives there with his mother, who has been kidnapped and held captive by a predator, a man who visits from time to time.

Room was the kind of book that people loved so much they pressed it on their friends, their book clubs, even literate strangers. Like Aria or The Lovely Bones, it just took hold of people and wouldn’t let them go.

Making that kind of book/obsessional love object into a movie isn’t a piece of cake, but the makers of this movie seem to have pulled it off. Room is one of eight movies nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, and Brie Larson, its star, has gotten an Oscar nod for Best Actress.

Critics have been pretty much universally over the moon about the movie, and it sounds like it might be a good idea to bring along a tissue or two. (Men: a manly bandanna is always appropriate, just in case.)

I haven’t seen Room, but all the signs are there. If you want to see a story about how a mother’s love can protect and transform the life of her son, both in captivity and out, then pull on your boots on Tuesday night and head for The Music Hall.

I’ll be there, and I hope you will be too. Free coffee, free popcorn and a free exchange of ideas will follow the film. That’s a lot of free stuff.