Steven Rea's Weekend Selections

Room A woman and her 5-year-old are held captive in a garden shed - the only reality the boy, born there, has ever known. Amazing, gripping, scary, beautiful adaptation of the Emma Donoghue novel (by the writer herself), deftly directed by Lenny Abrahamson. Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay are extraordinary as the mother and son. R

Suffragette Set in 1912 London, a fictional tale built upon the historic fight for women's voting rights. Carey Mulligan is a lowly laundry worker who has a political awakening, joins a band of activists who throw rocks and blow up mailboxes, and gets tossed into prison for her trouble. Helena Bonham Carter, Ben Whishaw, and Meryl Streep (as real-life feminist firebrand Emmeline Pankhurst) costar. PG-13

Victoria Laia Costa has the title role of a young woman living and working in Berlin who meets four guys late at night and agrees to hang out with them. They have something they must do, and she tags along. By the time the sun's coming up, she and one of the guys have turned into a kind of Euro hipster Bonnie and Clyde. Shot in one nimble, single two-hours-plus continuous take. Thrilling cinema, and just plain thrilling, too. No MPAA rating