Kyle Henry's "Room" is a allegorical masterpiece which exposes the subtle ways in which the drudgery and frustration of daily life can overwhelm and debilitate us. It may, at times, seem like it is exploring how our reaction to such defeat can also be empowering and life-changing but the finality of the film's ending negates any such ideas. Eventually the protagonist here, hammered into submission by the utter banality and fruitlessness of existence, enters a state of psychic withdrawal which mirrors the termination of living in such a brutal yet spiritual way that makes it nearly indistinguishable from death itself.

We meet Julia (Cyndi Williams), a overworked and tired Houston housewife who takes care of her family while maintaining numerous odd jobs including working at a Bingo parlour (a staple of suburban Texas life). Frustrated and exploited, Julia begins having visions of an empty loft, the titular "Room," coupled with reoccurring headaches. Eventually she will take a gigantic risk and leave everything she knows behind in search of the place in this vision.

But Henry isn't interested in telling us a solid, coherent story. His film is artistic and bold. The visuals here are often amazing works of video art which beautifully congeal with his solid, realistic storyline to create one of the most unusual yet interesting films to be seen in independent cinema in quite some time.

Much of Henry's artistic vision is created through the amazing sound design brought to the film by Justin Hennard and Chris Keyland. Hennard, who like Henry and many of the people who worked on the film is from Austin, has spent a few years now surprising and enthralling Austin audiences with his unique avant-garde short films that often use sound in fresh and interesting ways. Henry, whose documentary "University, Inc" was a huge underground hit on college campuses a couple years ago, has quite a knack for amassing talented individuals to assist him in bringing his cinematic visions to life. "University, Inc" utilized the talents of people like Luke Savisky and Spenser Parsons. "Room" uses Hennard, Williams, actor Carlos Trevino and a plethora of others to help shape the film into a solid, important, and interesting piece. The film is so interesting that R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe signed on as a producer and it has shown at both Sundance and at Cannes.

Henry's monumental achievement here is in bringing not only Julia's world to the forefront of our consciousness but also coupling it with the experiences we have all traveled through while living on planet Earth in America in the first part of the 21st Century. While almost all of the film's audience can relate to being overworked, underpaid and consistently tired, many can also connect to the outside influences such as post 9/11 world politics, modern consumerism, and the threat of global terrorism which consistently haunt and frustrate us in this day and age. Henry's film is laced subtly and ingeniously with these reminders of just how oppressive and pressurized our present daily lives can seem. This is a film about one woman's journey for peace and serenity in a world that offers little of either, but it is also a film about all of our lives and all of the things that trouble us in our modern world. Henry is being political, as seems his wont, but his ideas aren't about politics as much as they are about the frustration and angst that modern politics cause. He shows us George W. Bush in a clip where he reminds one more of Adolph Hitler than the President of the United States but he isn't bludgeoning us over the head with a hammer the rest of the time. The pacing is brilliant, nearly as brutal as the pace of modern life, making the film a subtle, slowly overwhelming piece that inundates us with the idea of the oppressive nature of life in modern 21st Century America.

"Room" is a cry for breathing room, for space, for a break. With Henry's script and Williams' perfect performance, "Room" becomes a desperate battle cry for peace and serenity before it slowly dissolves into the utter chaos - yet ultimate release - of total psychological withdrawal.

The last ten minutes of "Room" may be the most psychologically introspective and artistic cinematic experience brought to the screen since the finale of Kubrick's "2001." Travelling inside the mind of our protagonist, we journey deep into psyche and at last find inner peace. But in the process, thanks to Henry's brilliant ambiguousness, the viewer, like the protagonist, can only find resolution by delving inside ourselves and becoming utterly lost in the meaning of it all.

Note:

Filmed in Austin, Houston and NYC.

Viewed on a DVD provided by the filmmaker in August of 2005.

Report Card

Script: A

Acting: A

Cinematography\Lighting: A+

Special Effects\Make Up: A+

Music: A+

Final Grade: A