Irish author Emma Donoghue has revealed in past interviews that the Fritzl case spurred her to write Room, her best-selling novel. But during Monday’s Toronto international film festival press conference for the film adaptation, written by Donoghue and directed by Lenny Abrahamson (Frank), the team behind the drama made clear that the case didn’t factor into the making of Room.
Both the book and the film center on a young woman (played by Short Term 12 star Brie Larson) abducted and raped seven years earlier by a stranger, and now imprisoned in a backyard shack with her five-year son, who has never known a normal life. Elisabeth Fritzl went through a similar experience, having endured 24 years of captivity in the basement of her family home, where she was raped numerous times by her father, resulting in the birth of seven children and one miscarriage; four of the children joined their mother in captivity; the rest were raised by her parents.
Because Donoghue and Abrahamson both consider Room to be a love story, and not a crime thriller, they felt compelled to stay away from the case in the making of the film. In fact, Donoghue claimed not to find the premise especially disturbing. She explained: “The child is loved - you’re never seeing anyone being mean to the child. He’s getting a best-case scenario of intense, 24-hour daily mother love.”
Abrahamson said he researched similar cases, in order to avoid any direct references in his film. He did admit to being informed by the “shapes and patterns” of the stories he unearthed - for example: “It’s amazing to look at some of these homecomings that are captured by news crews.”
He continued: “But for any really good piece of storytelling, it has to be about those specific characters. So we just stuck to the truth of the characters, and not to reference any true crime.”
