In The Bedroom
Tom Wilkinson, Sissy Spacek, Marisa Tomei; Directed by Todd Field
In The Bedroom is a very small story on the outset, with a very small cast, set in the very small town of Camden, Maine. The Fowler family is at center stage. Matt Fowler, (Tom Wilkinson), is a respected doctor who practices in a small office just a few minutes from his home. His wife, Ruth (Sissy Spacek), is in the process of conducting a choir at a local school. Their son, Frank, is in the final stages of planning for college. They would seem to be quite the normal family, if it weren't for the complication of their son's summer romance, a relationship that has quickly turned more serious than either of his parents would like. The woman in question, Natalie (Marisa Tomei), is several years older, has two very young children to take care of, and is in the painful and volatile beginnings of divorce. Not yet being legally divided from her husband, things take an extremely ugly turn when her Ex-to-be decides he wants to work things out, - which means somehow dealing with the young roadblock that is standing in his way.
This film moves very slowly, made up mostly of all the still, quiet moments there are in life, and particularly in times of earth-shattering heartbreak. The strength and success of this kind of film is carried almost completely on the shoulders of the magnificent actors who portray Mr. and Mrs. Fowler. Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek portray the most normal, down-to-earth couple you can imagine, and they are mesmerizing. How is that achieved? How many people do you know in your own life who are like that? I think it comes from having an immense heart that is large and vulnerable enough to share real pain with millions of audience members. You can't fake this stuff. And the amount of strife that builds is so unbelievable that you feel you are about to suffocate, - almost. Nick Stahl is believable and likeable enough as the young lover, and Marisa Tomei shows us that this film is of the kind she was supposed to have been making all along. I shake my head even now to think of how difficult and tricky that role must have been for her to play. I don't envy her for it. Todd Field and cinematographer Antonio Calvache employ their talents to bring interior and exterior chills. The style is very sparse, almost sterile. There is a coldness to the lighting and atmosphere that ensures every bone of the skeleton of this story is encrusted with frost. Even sunny days appear bleak and dismal.
I thought of American Beauty several times while I was watching this film, just because of the unconventional relationships and events of extreme crisis that arise in this supposedly "sleepy little town." It strikes me that In the Bedroom is the film that American Beauty should really have been. Field's drama is immensely more mature, realistic, and in no ways lounges in the smugness of its own suspected cleverness. The pacing can get agonizingly slow for some, but if you find yourself getting so deeply sucked in, you won't even notice the minutes passing by, until you recoil with that hollow feeling in your gut by the time the last frame cuts off.
Grading:
Story = B+
Originality = A-
DVD Features = N/A
Acting = A
Enjoyability = A-
Visuals = A-
Overall = A-
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