Leia (Saoirse Ronan) was abducted by stranger Benjamin McKay (Jason Isaacs) at the age of four. She lived in the basement believing the world had ended. After 17 years of isolation, she is reunited with her birth parents (Cynthia Nixon, David Warshofsky). She struggles to acclimate to them who are essentially strangers and even her real name Leanne. Her mother can't leave her by herself and is desperate to connect to her. The marriage is falling apart. Dr. Andrews (Rosalind Chao) is Leia's therapist.Director Nikole Beckwith strips away any flash or music. The colors are washed out. It is deliberately quiet at times. It leaves the movie feeling dead for the first half. Saoirse is able to maintain interest by her sheer presence. Leia takes a turn around the midpoint. It's a big risk and it becomes bursts of overwrought awkwardness. She needs a connection outside of the situation. The obvious comparison is Room which is more cinematic and has more "life". This is trying to walk down the same path but not as scenic. The two women produce a compelling battle but I'm not sure if it's worthwhile.

An absolutely brooding piece where a girl is returned home 17 years after her abduction.It's as if there is a brick wall standing between the girl and anyone she deals with. Hesitant but universally religious, she has this wall around here when she speaks and it appears that she is either in isolation or totally spaced out. Kept in a basement, she still harbors feelings for the man who abducted her and even goes so far to visit him in jail.Saiorise Ronan and Cynthia Nixon are both excellent as daughter and mother, respectively.The father is a more upbeat type and is much more optimistic than the Nixon character.You can actually feel the tension in the air, but you would want the film to break out more, possibly with other characters.

Great movie. Cynthia Nixon was outstanding as a mother who has become unbalanced since her daughter was kidnapped from a park some 15-20 years ago. Ronan was also very good as the emotionally blank girl who has been rescued and returned to her family. The mother, who lacks insight into her daughter's problems, tries desperately to reinstall the bond between them, but ironically, only reinforces the distance between them. These agonizing attempts at therapy also parallel the professional help that the young girl receives, in the sense that both therapies fail to bring the empathy and insight required to heal. This is a compelling movie. Only watch if you love slow, but powerful, drama.

There are some interesting ideas in this movie sadly they were not implemented..."Stockholm, Pennsylvania" a young woman kidnapped at 4 and kept in a basement for 18 years is reunited with the parents she doesn't remember,the child-kidnapping genre usually it focuses on the victim and the abductor and ends when the subject is found.This film had a more original spin and focused on the after math.I give the film points for originality, one usually does not see this part we only see the victim's arms wrapped around their parents and the credits start to roll. Leia is deeply attached to the mild-mannered end-of-days cultist (Jason Isaacs, in a very small role) who kidnapped her and cut her off from the outside world. But that enforced seclusion also means that at 22 she's facing the childhood challenges and embarrassments of learning how to operate in the adult world.all this sounds like a filmmaker's dream protect.Sadly it takes a turn we put ourselves in the shoes of the mother although her intentions are good, she becomes extremely obsessive to get her daughter back to the point that her actions are not so different from the kidnapper,that's when the film loses me,it becomes unrealistic, it is an obsession to achieve her daughters love at all costs.Strong performances from Saoirse Ronan and Cynthia Nixon, they manage to get the high points of the movie,I leaned more to Emma Donaghue's compelling 2010 novel Room, which developed far more bracing and psychologically nuanced drama out of a similar scenario of shut-ins readjusting to an unknown world.