The film stars Brie Larson as a kidnapped woman who is held in captivity for seven years. Her five year old son has never experienced life outside of their one room prison.
Early reviews are raving about Larson's performance, with Academy Award predictions already swirling, while Abrahamson's directing is being lauded for its intimate, suspenseful and emotive style.
Donoghue has previously revealed in past interviews that her novel was inspired by the Fritzl kidnapping case, where Josef Fritzl kept his daughter Elisabeth captive for over twenty-four years, raping and abusing her. Elisabeth gave birth to seven children and had one miscarriage; four of the children stayed with her in captivity while the other three were raised by Elisabeth's parents.
However, during a press conference at TIFF, Abrahamson said he avoided researching the Fritzl case, in order to avoid any direct references in his film. The director and Donoghue agreed that their film was more a mother-son love story rather than a story about the kidnapper, and so they wanted to focus on that side of the story. Abrahamson did admit to researching other similar cases of kidnapping, and being informed by the “shapes and patterns” of the stories he unearthed." However, he concluded that "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.”
Another film getting rave reviews from TIFF is The Martian, which stars Matt Damon as an astronaut who gets stranded on Mars and is directed by science fiction legend Ridley Scott. The film co-stars many well-known actors, including Jeff Daniels, Kate Mara, Kristen Wiig, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sean Bean, Michael Peña, and Donald Glover.