In the Bedroom starring Tom
Wilkinson, Sissy Spacek, Nick Stahl,
Marisa Tomei, William Mapother
In The Trap
When a film with such emotional resonance and visual poise as In the
Bedroom makes it to the screen, it seems an unexpected gift meant to
remind us of the mediums possibility for sensitivity and epiphany. First-time
director Todd Field, who adapted the film from a story by Andre Dubus with
screenwriter Rob Festinger, quietly observes the loss, rage, and inexorable
desire for revenge that follows the murder of a 21-year-old son. The film
opens with Frank (Nick Stahl), back from college for the summer, taking up
with Natalie (Marisa Tomei), a slightly older, sexually alluring woman with
two boys and an estranged husband prone to violence. It is the tender
portrayal of love between Frank and his parents, even as Frank and
Natalies relationship reveals the prejudices of all involved, that makes the
subsequent anguish of the film so acute. Matt and Ruth Fowler (Tom
Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek), middle-class denizens of a Maine lobster
town where everyone knows each other, toil through weeks of devastation
and blame following Franks murder before their outrage obliterates all else.
Fields exact handling of jealousy, class division, and grief is abetted by
career-highlight performances from Wilkinson and Spacek. In the Bedroom
is, along with You Can Count On Me, one of the best American dramas to
grace the new millennium so far. --Fionn Meade
2001 was a banner year for film noir, with The Man Who Wasnt There,
Mulholland Dr., Memento, and Richard Dutchers Brigham City. Add to
these Todd Fields In The Bedroom which I finally saw this week. Its a
meticulously constructed, suspenseful film where every line of dialog and
shot has significance. It concerns Sissy Spacek (who pulls off a tricky
performance that may get her another Oscar), an upper-middle-class
woman whose promising college age son becomes involved with a
working-class older woman (Marisa Tomei) with a couple of young kids
and a glowering soon-to-be ex-husband. There are some surprises to be
had, including a screeching big one right in the middle of the movie which I
shall not reveal (although many critics ignorantly have.) Suffice it to say
that the moral fault (or responsibility) is not where you initially think it is.
The film is based on a short story by Andre Dubus, an explicitly Catholic
writer. At one point in the film a priest offers a vision of faith as as healing
and redemptive force (which is sadly not accepted). The movie is
ultimately about the absolute necessity of faith and forgiveness for spiritual
survival in the face of the most extreme, murderous human situations.
Think of it as a Catholic companion to Dutchers Brigham City.
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