In the Bedroom
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Movie Reviews of In the Bedroom
Movie Review: One of the most powerful family dramas I've ever seen!
Summary: 5 Stars
I finally saw this film the other night and I have to say that I was utterly floored. This has to be one of the most moving films I've ever seen. Adapted from Andre Dubus' novel entitled `Killings', `In the Bedroom' delivers a sharp script and excellent acting to give the viewer a complete movie experience. In the small lobster town of Camden Maine the Fowler family is about to get hit with a brick, a very large painstaking brick. Matt (Wilkinson) and Ruth (Spacek) are about to lose their only son Frank (Stahl). When Frank returns from college for the summer he takes up with Natalie (Tomei), a slightly older women with two small boys and a violent estranged husband. When her husband finds out she's sleeping with Frank he reacts...violently and kills him.
The remainder of the film delves into the feelings each party is left with, most notably the parents, and how this tragedy has ripped them apart and causes them to doubt each other and themselves. As the trial against Natalie's husband Richard (Mapother) continues to get stretched out, and after he's released on bail, the stress of the whole situation starts to weaken the Fowlers day by day, especially Ruth as she has to contend with seeing her son's killer walking the streets.
This film is really substantiated by the performances by the entire cast, Tom Wilkinson in particular. His subtlety in delivery is so brilliantly poised that we are given a devastating glimpse into this mans soul without over dramatics. He elegantly paints a picture of pain and despair without shoving it in our face. You just want to hold him and tell him it'll be alright...There's one scene in particular that really got to me...that grabbed me by the heartstrings if you will. After the funeral Matt makes his way up to his son's bedroom and as he's looking through his things you get a glimpse of these tears rolling off his face and its there in that moment, in the bedroom, that this movie reached out to me.
I don't know what more I can say other than the fact that this movie is so much more than entertainment. It delves into the raw emotions of the people involved and delivers a tragic look at loss and grief and the horrible things we may do in seeking out justice (or merely seeking peace of mind). While it does move slowly, that's a big part of the power it holds for it's in the slow moving sequences of events where we get to see the effect the murder has had on this family. I agree with one reviewer who said you'll either love it or hate it. I loved it and like his girlfriend, my wife fell asleep (to her credit it was really late) but if your not a fan of slow moving melodramas then you may want to skip this one. If you are though a fan of touching, dramatic, emotionally driven character studies then this is just the movie you've been waiting for. I agree with the critics who hail this as one of the greatest American dramas to grace the silver screen in a very long time.
Movie Review: Not a film for the shallow mind
Summary: 5 Stars
When I rented this DVD, the girl behind the counter at the video store said to me, "Um, well this movie really didn't, you know, do it for me. It was like, well some parts I didn't really understand." It was at that moment that I knew I would really enjoy this film. I don't like cookie cutter films, I like to use my head.
In The Bedroom faces a families struggle through tragedy. A married couple, Matt and Ruth Fowler (Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek) have one child, a 21 year-old son Frank (Nick Stahl) who is about to leave town at summer's end to go back to college. He has a girlfriend, Natalie (Marissa Tomei) who is older, and his mother does not approve. He assures her that it is only "a summer thing," although love is beginning to develop. Natalie has two children and an ex-husband, and during a scuffle, Frank is murdered by Natalie's ex. There is some tension between Frank's parents following his death, for his mother never supported her son's relationship, yet his father did. They must work through their conflict of emotions regarding the murder, and once they do, a plan on how to deal with the tragedy is formed. A plan, that once executed, will shock you, and leave you wondering if their actions were within reason.
This is a film to challenge your intellect, so if you prefer paint-by-number films where everything is laid out for you, then you will not enjoy it. Close attention must be paid to dialogue, and if you read between the lines, there should be no holes left in the plot.
In response to "A Viewer," from Katy, TX, who posted a review on this film: There was no need for the camera angle to stay on the scuffle so the viewer could watch the murder happen. You do not need to see the killer's face to understand his motivation. The motivation is givin through Matt Fowler's explanation of lobster traps to Natalie's son. (He picks up the lobster missing a claw and show's it to the boy. He explains that the section of the trap that stores the lobsters is called "The Bedroom." And if you get more than two lobsters in the bedroom, something (like a missing claw) is bound to happen. Any additional questions regarding motivation are cleared up when Matt tells his wife Ruth about the photograph he saw. He speaks of the way Natalie was smiling.) Hope that helped you out.
I highly recommend this film to everyone. The acting is superb, and Todd Field did a wonderful job of directing. A great deal of the plot is revealed through conversations involving certain objects, but if you pay attention, and read between the lines, then you will be able to enjoy the film to the fullest. After renting this film, I immediately bought a copy to add to my collection.
Movie Review: Unbelievably Powerful
Summary: 5 Stars
What an incredible accomplishment. And what I found out after watching this amazing movie was the director is new to directing and that this was his first film. I was shocked, utterly and completely shocked. You know why? Because this film knocked the socks off of me and proved itself to be one of those movies that stays with you for years after seeing it! It was so unbelievably good. Don't listen to people who say that the script lacks and that the acting lacks because that is all a lie.First of all, this is the *best picture of 2001*, and it should have won Best Picture. This movie is exciting, well-acted, well-written, well everything! It is a flawless indie in all respects.
And the acting alone was the best in 2001. Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson performed a tango of fights, glances and dark conversations that molded the movie into perfect form. And Marisa Tomei (who proved herself to me here) leaves you with that feeling of "when is she going to come back?" and "I want her to feel better!" She creates a character that is so lovable and dark and torn that you find yourself caring for her all the time, despite anything that she's done. If it were just another actress playing this role, then the film wouldn't have been the same. Tomei was definately the greatest part.
Just a quick review of the synopsis: Tomei starts dating the eight-years-younger son (a powerful-with-subtlety Nick Stahl) of Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson. But Tomei's ex-husband can't accept that they aren't married any longer. So jealousy takes hold, and so does revenge, and so does anger. And the consequences of these emotions start to overload and develop into a tragedy about a family gone wrong. But who's to blame?
Okay, I do have one or two disclaimers. First of all, the name "In the Bedroom" (for all of you concerned parents out there) has absolutely nothing to do with sex! This movie is rated R for violence and a scene of bad language, NOT SEX! In the bedroom is a saying equivelent to "three's a crowd," which is the theme of the film. And yes, this movie, I admit, may be boring to some. But remember, the excitement is mostly projected from the pace of the film, the well-portrayed emotions of the actors and the one or two events that get this movie going (which can be another disclaimer to some). And I know those three reasons sound subtle and superfluous. But trust me, it will take your breath away. This film was amazing!
Bottom Line: The best film of 2001 with the best acting, writing and overall...best-ness (?). (I give it an A+)
Movie Review: One of the most powerful films of all time!
Summary: 5 Stars
In The Bedroom is about a couple who lose the moral presence they had in their lives and who must in the end live in a world of evil that they have unwittingly expanded, to now include tghemselves. Great loss in this case is not followed by spiritual growth, and this possibility of spiritual growth is found everywhere in the film. Sissy Spacekl and Tom Wilkinson abandon reason and opt for the irrational, and enter into the realm of the truly tragic. In The Bedroom rasies the level of discouse about film s and how they are made and acted by millioins of percetage points. This film shows us where so many current films go wrong or nowhere (A Beautifuil Mind, Vanilla Sky, The Shipping News etc.). Ron Howard distrusts the material of John Nash's very sad life and opts for falsehoods and non art; The Shipping News has no news in it; it is all over the top revelation without cinematic subtlty or expertise, it is more of The Cider House Rules; Vanilla Sky is better, but it tries so hard to be edgy and surreal that it fails to be either, and Tom Cruise cannot carry anything serious unless he has Nicole Kidmann to cover for him. But In The Bedroom is diffrent; it has actors who have expert direction and the talent to follow it, camerwork of a high calibre that reveals as it tracks the eerie town of Camden,Maine, a washed out Maine landscape that matches anything Ingmar Bergman ever shot in Sweden. There are no blu skies as the sun beats down, no healthy looking trees or flowers, and an ocean that looks (and is) polluted, innutrient. An ugly place for bad things to happen.
The actors lead us into the labyrinthian ways of terror and loss and vengeance. The ending sharply contrasts with the beginning, as life gives way to death and guilt and fear, with the underpinnings of large questions about personal morality,the development of values that form morality, and the possibility that all cultural and spiritual axioms about life are dead wrong, as following them leads to more self doubt and evil intent.
I recommend this film to everyone who has tired of the pat fare that has been on the scene for many years , and has fortunately found challenges in such films as this, challenges that rebuff the simplistic solutions that pose as great thought, and even greater spiritual insight. We have so far to go, light years to go to understand what makes a plot like this one presented in In The Bedroom possible and imaginable on paper and on celluloid. In The Bedroom is where we are.
Movie Review: Powerful, Moving, No Easy Answers
Summary: 5 Stars
"In the Bedroom" (2002) is a tragedy that takes place amid a beckoning and idyllic Maine landscape. In the small town of Camden the father, Matt Fowler (Tom Wilkinson), is a medical doctor, the mother, Ruth (Sissy Spacek) is a chorus teacher in the local high school.
Apparently the paternal grandfather had been a lobsterman. Matt and Ruth's son, Frank, has taken up lobstering to make extra money, and because it's in the family blood. He's bought a boat and goes out each day to pull in the traps. Lobstering has skipped a generation, but the father still yearns to go out to sea and be part of the family tradition. The son has a promising future in college, and has architectural talents.
Frank has fallen in love with an older woman, Natalie (Marisa Tomei) separated from her abusive husband, not yet divorced, with two young children. Her husband, Richard Strout, is the scion of the Strout Canning Company, apparently the town's main employer. In the small town it's difficult to get away from the past, and the canning company is a constant presence.
In a fateful scene Frank gets killed. Think of it as a classical tragedy: the prince has been killed. The king and queen are grieving, distraught. The death is driving them further and further apart. They grieve deeply over their dead son, but they grieve separately. They cannot join each other in their sorrow because each blames the other for what has happened.
What they say to each other in their big blow-up has truth on both sides. Has the mother been too strict, too much of a controller? At times is she like Lady Macbeth? Has the father been too indulgent? Has he had a tendency to look the other way when it came to the son? Has he been envious of his son? Has he been weak and capable of being manipulated?
The movie carefully reveals the fault lines in the lives of the Fowlers. Viewers will have a difficult time anticipating where the movie is heading, but the director wants viewers to focus on the characters of the father and mother as determinants of the plot's direction. There are no easy answers, only moral dilemmas.
This film has great cinematography and editing. The acting is superb. It's full of a lot of prosaic details that make it very real and believable. The movie builds meticulously and carefully to a powerful ending. Don't miss the concluding scenes because they'll haunt you.