Lenny Abrahamson gives isolated people time to be understood, and we value his patient work with actors. Room shows how affecting that approach can be, though its writing and music sometimes push harder than the performances need.
Fi1m perspective
In Room (2015), Ma has to help Jack make sense of the shed in which they are held while coping with what he cannot yet understand. Lenny Abrahamson keeps returning our attention to the work of looking after him. We found it painful to watch because Brie Larson makes that care feel like a daily effort, with her own distress still present. The relationship she builds with Jacob Tremblay gives the film enough strength to survive its occasional attempts to reassure us.
That interest in people living apart from others runs through his earlier films. His debut, Adam & Paul (2004), established a collaboration with writer Mark O'Halloran and a concern for people on the margins of Irish life. Garage (2007) continued those understated studies of isolation. What Richard Did (2012) turned towards privilege, while the eccentric ensemble of Frank (2014) brought his work wider attention.
Room gives that interest a particularly demanding test, asking us to understand a confined space through a child's experience. Abrahamson's concentration on parenting keeps the captivity story from becoming sensational. Larson and Tremblay convey distress that Donoghue's writing sometimes tidies away, and their relationship remains convincing when the script is less so. The music can also press for feelings the actors have already earned. These are meaningful weaknesses in an otherwise absorbing film, and they suggest how little extra prompting Abrahamson's work with performers needs.
Television followed with Normal People (2020) and Conversations with Friends (2022), both adaptations. The literary material and ensemble performances of Normal People offered further scope for his patient approach to actors. For a first encounter, we would still choose Room, where his attention to the practical demands of care matters more than the suspense. It is not the choice for a night when a happy distraction is required.
Biography
Lenny Abrahamson is an Irish film and television director. He was born Leonard Ian Abrahamson on 30 November 1966 in Dublin and studied physics and philosophy at Trinity College Dublin. He began directing short films and commercials before his feature debut with Adam & Paul in 2004.
Abrahamson is known for the independent films Garage (2007), What Richard Did (2012), Frank (2014) and Room (2015). Room, adapted from Emma Donoghue’s novel, received four Academy Award nominations including Best Director. He later directed six episodes of the series Normal People (2020), for which he received a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series. He has won six Irish Film and Television Awards.
