CHECK TO SEE IF BRIE LARSON’S ROOM ON NETFLIX IS BASED ON A TRUE STORY!
Room is now available to stream on Netflix! Continue reading to find out if the movie is based on a true story! Room is an independent movie directed by Lenny Abrahamson that offers a delicate yet dramatic story from the perspective of five-year-old Jack.
Joy, her mother, was kidnapped and held hostage when she was seventeen years old. The movie explores the victim’s burden, the lack of a victim, and the challenges of rehabilitation following the trauma of imprisonment and abuse in a tight environment. Continue reading if you’re curious whether Room is based on a true story.
ROOM WAS IT INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY?
Room is based on the same book, which was inspired by Elisabeth Fritzl’s true story. The tragic true story of Elisabeth Fritzl, a lady who has been held captive by her father, Josef Fritzl, for 24 years, inspired Emma Donoghue, the book’s author, in an interview. This story “sparked” Donoghue’s work, as he specifically states in the interview.
“To suggest that Room is modeled on the Fritzl case is too strong,” Donoghue explains. Rather, I would say that this case caused it. Newspaper articles on Felix Fritzl, a five-year-old boy who was thrust into a world he didn’t understand, inspired me. “I was captivated by the image of a wide-eyed youngster emerging into the world like a Martian landing on Earth.
The Fritzl scandal, which occurred in Amstetten, Austria, garnered widespread media attention, much like the Joy and Jack finding in Room. Elisabeth was sexually molested by her father when she was 11 years old, and at the age of 18, she was locked in the cellar, where she lived for 24 years.
Josef raped her several times throughout the course of those 24 years, and she gave birth to seven children. He was arrested in April 2008, the same year that the horrifying act was made public, and was eventually sentenced to life in jail.