Room

Recently, I watched the film “Room” inspired by the novel of the same name by Emma Donoghue. It was based on several incidents of captivity and kidnapping from real life. Five-year-old Jack narrates the story from his own perspective.  He is introduced to the world outside through a television set, a skylight and his Ma. Jack doesn’t know anything else. He draws on the walls and is keenly interested in the outer space.

Inside the room, Ma and Jack have spent years of their life, held captive by “Old Nick”. Old Nick had kidnapped Ma when she was 19 years old and he regularly sexually abuses her. Jack is the product of this abuse.

Old Nick loses his job and worried that he might kill her and Jack, Ma trains Jack with an escape plan. She tells him that the world is much wider outside. Jack is unable to fathom that the television set people live beyond the television too. It takes him days of training to understand the plan. Finally, one fortunate day, Ma executes the plan and although Jack executes it with some hitches, the police finds Ma. The next part of the movie follows the reintegration of Jack and Ma, back into the regular life.  

The movie made me curious about such kidnapping and on further research I read about Feral children, who have no interaction with humans or live with animals. Also, several abusers who have held their own children captive. What amazes me is the survival of the victims. They  bend to the rules of the kidnappers, accept their whims and fancies and some of them are unscathed too or appear so. I am sure they would suffer from certain mental issues but “hope” kept them alive for years. The most recent case being: Jammy Closs (her parents were murdered), who was held captive for eighty-eight days in rural Wisconsin and one fine day, when her kidnapper left home, she escaped. Though frail and unkempt, she reached out to a morning jogger and they traced her to her living relative, her aunt.

I am sure Jammy’s memory would jog her to the incident for a long time and just like in the movie “Room”, media and the society would be piqued by her story. Fortunately, Ma and Jack receive their happy ending through living independently and discovering the world in their own right.

I hope and pray that such victims and captivity incidents reduce as it sends shivers down the spine just reading about it.