Another Round of Applause for “Room”

Brie Larson’s new movie, “Room,” is sparking an urgent question among fall film festival audiences. The question isn’t, “Is it good?” — reaction coming out of early screenings is almost uniformly positive, with much of the praise directed at the 25-year-old actress’ performance. The question is, “Can I handle it?”

“I would say, if a movie makes you cry, you probably needed to cry,” Larson said.

Adapted by Emma Donoghue from her bestselling novel of the same name, “Room” tells the story of a young woman who has been kidnapped and trapped in a shed for seven years, where she is raped and gives birth to a son, Jack (Jacob Tremblay). As in the novel, the movie unfolds from Jack’s point of view, and his growing understanding of his circumstances mirrors that of the audience.

“Room,” which arrives in theaters Oct. 16, will screen for its widest audience yet on Tuesday at the Toronto International Film Festival.

“This is a story of escape and of freedom, ultimately,” said “Room” director Lenny Abrahamson. “You start in the darkest place, and then it’s a journey out of that. It’s not a misery memoir. The challenge in bringing the film to audiences is to communicate that.”

After an auspicious Telluride Film Festival premiere earlier this month, which sparked early Oscar talk, Larson, Abrahamson and Donoghue spoke with The Times about making their unusually intimate movie — and the disorienting experience of introducing it into the cacophony of Oscar season.

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