Room

I think it should be said that the quality of this film depends on what you're hoping to get out of it.

On one hand, there is a very cerebral character to this movie; there is a tension in figuring out what is actually happening to the character even through the end. The script and cinematography work well towards this end, and the movie doesn't seem to force any particular perspective on the viewer.

There is something to be said, however, for pronounced direction in a story. To say that this movie is slow, confusing, unsatisfying, or just plain boring would not be to make an unfounded assertion.

It all rests on what you expect Room to be...

If you like films with beginnings, middles, and ends, this is not for you. There is much to like about parts of this film. The acting is good, the cinematography is good, the music and sound design is excellent, and the editing is very good. Still, I would have preferred going to any trailer park in Texas and drinking beer with the residents. The film is so much like real life that it makes me long for real life instead of watching an imitation. I don't need to pay to see banality on screen when I can walk out the door and see it for free, and in a more interesting, interactive way. This would have made 2 excellent experimental films of about 8 minutes each. This is not a "message film," but rather a very long mood piece, and unfortunately, all of that was conveyed by the movie poster. "Room" reminds me of Richard Linklater's first feature film, "It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books." I disliked that film for many of the same reasons, and now Linklater is one of my favorite directors. I hope the same will happen with this filmmaker.

I actually liked this film. No it isn't perfect-but it gave me a feeling that not many others have. I'd compare the feeling to the one I got from Clean, Shaven and Inland Empire. Sort of a nightmarish claustrophobia, but the sort you get from being stuck inside your own body. I think the director deserves credit for a haunting, unique film. I really related to the main character in her 'lostness'...this movie really gets that the most disturbing things are not subversive or alien to us- they are real situations, every day things. No, there's not a real plot or a satisfying-loose ends-tying finale, but if there were I'd feel cheated because life isn't like that. I think this film has been reviewed by too many people who have never experienced real fear.

I was very disappointed by this movie and all I could think of was that I wanted the time and money back that I wasted. I can't believe that the Austin Film Society granted Kyle Henry the money to make this "film" that never seemed to go anywhere. Kyle Henry and Cyndi Williams were in attendance and they didn't even seem to know what the movie was about during the q & a session. Kyle stated that Americans are often spoon fed the answers in a film that are merely crap. Well I would have like to have been spoon fed some of that crap because at least those movies have a direction, a definitive ending, and leave the audience with something to think about other than that's an hour of my life I'll never get back.

Ouch. Wow. Terrible. Simple film that is so dull and boring with no rhyme or reason. The first half is almost interesting as she "loses it"... but the second half she wanders around NY in a dazed fog, leaving the viewers in a dark cloud of disappointment. The ending was nothing at all... leaving us so empty. The rental box sounded very compelling, but the film is a waste of time. Hey, the lead actress did a really good job of playing the part of the overburdened, confused and dazed housewife, but the role was not enough to carry this film.

Sorry, don't rent this one. All they had to do was give us a solid second half and a firm conclusion and I would have given it a 5.