Customer Reviews

Room

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am aware that I am running against the herd, but I loved this movie.
I loved the music and the ambiance, and even the "too obvious to be subliminal"
messages. The movie is quiet and I thought had a mysterious quality to it that I didn't
feel compelled to overanalyze. I actually watched this twice before buying it.

I appreciated what this solemn little indie film was trying to capture and could somewhat identify with Julia's compulsion to search for something possibly beyond this world, but not knowing exactly what it was, what it represented or where to find it. Central themes revolve around psychic and emotional dissonance. Camera approach is almost cinema vérité, adding to the sense of anguish and anxiety that permeates each scene. This film (for me, anyway) is a haunting study of alienation, despair, longing, desire and ultimately escape for something *MORE.

The actress Cyndi Williams gave a superb performance as an archetypal housewife, or perhaps, more accurately, struggling member of the Western middle class who feels the pull of the abyss on her psyche, represented by recurring visions of a loft-like space with blinding white light at the windows. Some viewers may quickly categorize this woman as someone who is battling and succumbing to a form of mental illness--perhaps experiencing a nervous breakdown-- but I'm not so sure that's completely the case here. She suffers migraines, passes out in the supermarket and at home, secretly smokes, is chronically late for work and finally crashes her vehicle when she blacks out behind the wheel just after having one of her visions of the ROOM. Upon waking from her blackout at road's edge, she realizes that she has crashed into the sign of an airplane in flight. She's next to the airport. The sign of the plane becomes a symbol for her, as does the sound of a plane taking off on the runway next to her. Sequence to her driving to her job at the bingo parlor, slipping in and robbing the safe, then a brief stop at home, to bandage the cut on her forehead she sustained from her auto accident and to quickly pack a few clothes and then straight to the airport to catch a plane to New York, the inexplicable destination she's drawn to in search of the ROOM.

The rest of the film is a series of scenes that show this woman, who now fully symbolizes a lost soul, a life displaced, searching the streets of New York for the ROOM. Now she has embarked on a journey driven by symbols--an arrow drawn in the sidewalk, arrows posted on walls, a strange encounter with a psychic, hallways, locked doors, someone from her past who has changed her name and reinvented herself, an awkward one night stand, until finally she's drawn to a rooftop and toward the edge of a building where she looks down and sees the top of a white van parked directly below. Her vision flickers as she gazes at the top of this vehicle and then a final hallucinatory montage of various images of the ROOM before a final fade to bright white. Roll credits. I was not disappointed with the (seemingly) abrupt ending of this film. To me, it felt like an appropriate, albeit symbolic underscore to the running question throughout the film; is she seeking solace, redemption, transcendence or annihilation?

Incidentally, this is the running question throughout all our lives. Whether we want to consciously acknowledge it or not.

I suspect this film will leave most people scratching (or shaking) their heads and wanting *MORE. In that regard, it's not a film for those who like to be spoon fed their "entertainment".

I think this film offers an interesting ride for any film lover that's looking for something different (i.e. - a story that promps the viewer to think about the story instead of force-feeding him/her the entire plot in easy-to-digest portions). The story has a life to it that's quite intoxicating, if you can get into it.

The performance by Cyndi Williams is very raw and couragous and is the glue that holds the film together. We get a glimpse of her painfully ordinary life and its daily struggles. By some twist of fate, she finds herself on a bizarre journey of constant discovery with no easy answers or conclusions.

After sitting through the usual dumbed-down Hollywood summer blockbusters, it was refreshing to see a film that required a little effort on my part. Honestly, it wasn't much of an effort. I was quickly taken in by the wonderful and honest performances, the great cinematography and the haunting score and ambience (Justin Hennard, who directed the equally wonderful and enigmatic MOONLIGHT BY THE SEA, worked on the sound design for this one). Overall, I really enjoyed the film. I was saddened by the bare-bones DVD. I would have really liked to hear a commentary on this one.

Recommended for adventurous movie-goers looking for something different.

The best movie I have seen in a long time. This movie is for those that don't think at the "shopping mall level". This is what real life is like.
For others that don't want to see-----try a Julia Robert movie.

"You can't awaken a person that is pretending to be asleep"
Indian saying

Spoiler alert. Seriously. I'm going to spoil this whole damn movie for you. And I'm not kidding here, you keep reading this you might as well just pack it in. Okay? All right then. Here goes... This movie has no damn ending!!! (Whew, thank you. I feel much better now.) Cyndi Williams stars here as Julia Barker, a housewife besieged by life. She's overweight, her job sucks, she can't pay her bills, her husband doesn't think she's hot, her teenage daughter sneaks out of the house at night and on top of it all she has migraines. Seriously, her very very best day is, well, not very good. But then Julia starts passing out for no apparent reason and whenever she does she has visions of a large, empty, warehouse like room. What is this room? What happened there? How is it connected to Julia and why is she having these visions? These are the questions that drive the story and...pause for dramatic effect here... none of them are ever answered! (And seriously, how screwed up is that?) Julia, in an act of desperation, steals some money, flies to New York City and begins looking for her mysterious room. She meets some people and has some adventures but at the close of the movie she's learned nothing and is left sitting on a rooftop in the cold, depressed and confused. So, here's my thing. Maybe this is art. Maybe I'm just not smart enough or sophisticated enough get it. (It's possible. I'm not all that bright.) And maybe there's some great esoteric message here I'm just not getting. But to me it mostly looks lame storytelling with a sort of college level "Ooo, look how smart I am." ending.

The tough part here is that Cyndi Williams does a nice job. And in truth, overall the movie is nicely shot and directed. Hopefully everyone involved with have better material to work with next time.

Like the loft that the lead character envisions, this movie is a big empty space that could have used some furniture. Like a plot, or motivation.

What the movie does have is a brave performance by Cindi Williams, some good supporting acting, and an occasional flash of noteworthy imagery (watch for the two creatures in white handing out rave invitations).

But that's just not enough to sustain 80 minutes of unexplained misery. Pain without meaning or redemption is like a toothache. Dostoyevsky might have liked this movie. You probably won't.

Most people who have seen this hate it. I saw it, and I loved it. In fact, it is spellbinding. The music is hypnotic, transfixing. The performance by Cyndi Williams is amazing. This is an experience you just sit back and let wash over you. Quite frankly, I haven't been this impressed since "Eyes Wide Shut" by Kubrick. I'm not saying Kyle Henry is the second coming of Stanley, but it definitely has the ability to put you in a trance. Hopefully this dvd is anamorphic 16x9 and has a commentary track with the director and Cyndi. No, this isn't a tidy little film that wraps up everything conveniently. It opens itself up to interpretation. I get it.

! I suppose that this might be appealing to someone who would first self-medicate to induce an, ahem, zoned out state for the duration...

I would like to think myself a non-traditionalist when it comes to film. I really like 'independent' films and do not need tidy endings, cleverly devised plots, or slick direction/scripts. But this film literally had nothing to offer - nothing, nothing, nothing.

This is a film that masquerades as a psychological exploration and suspense piece that leaves us hanging at every turn. A woman suddenly robs her employer and flies at the spur of the moment to NYC, seemingly owing to visions she's been getting of a warehouse. We follow her all around the city, through very disconnected events, and watch her try and find this place. What happens at the end is, like the reviewer below says, "open to interpretation," but unlike the said reviewer, I don't get it, and I don't think it can be "got."

Really, this film commits a few cardinal offenses. First, if one is trying to build a film about a character, give us at least some insight into her motivations. This film offers none of that - not even loosely. We have no idea why this woman is doing what she is doing other than that she has visions that we never find out anything real about.

The second cardinal sin is that a film that introduces suspense better dang well offer a bit of something that looks like a resolution. Otherwise, you will have an audience asking questions. The story line, music, and sparse dialogue leads to a very tense forward motion. Similarly, the director very clearly wants us to wonder where this is all leading. Well, there was not only no resolution, but not even anything like an attempt at one. I, as a viewer, was insulted.

I very much disagree with everything the reviewer below said. Cindy Williams' acting was very unidimensional. (She is good at acting confused as that is what she does the whole film. Is she good at anything else? I can't tell you. She never did anything else.) While the little dialogue there was wasn't horrible, it was quite random and not cohesive. And the story is worse than shallow. It is a shallowness that pretends desperately to be deep only to accentuate how shallow it is.

But see for yourself. Maybe the reviewer and I have very different tastes. That is often the case, but I conjecture that, as he says, the majority who see this film will hate it.