In the Bedroom

Rating:
Summary: A movie about feeling, not ideas or suspense.
Review: ... If you want suspense, do not watch this film. Some people complain that the actors do not act. If you want melodramatic histrionics, do not watch this film. If however you want to see subtle, real, and profound performances, if you want to feel through a movie instead of trying to unravel an artificially complicated plot, see this movie. If you want to see a director make interesting choices, see this film. If you want to see how much can be conveyed in the composition of a single scene, see this film. It's really quite stunning that such a delicate, small film has achieved such recognition as the Academy Award nomination. This movie wasn't made to please the largest number or earn the most money, like Gladiator, Titanic, and the like. It's really made for a smaller audience that appreciates simplicity, subtlety, and depth. God is in the details as they say. For the small audience that this film is for, it is a great achievement, a truly wonderful film.

Rating:
Summary: Oscar worthy!
Review: This is one of the most gripping films of the year. Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, and Morisa Tomei all deserve their Oscar nominations. This film is haunting, and will definitly draw you in from beginning to end. Very, very powerful. The slow pace of the film is necessary. The score from Thomas Newman is wonderful, and the direction and cinematography are excellent, too!

Don't miss it!

Rating:
Summary: Not necessarily a pleasant movie, but excellent acting
Review: Does the fact that a movie constantly keeps coming to mind weeks after you've seen it mean that it's a good movie? Does the fact that people have very ambivalent feelings about it mean it's a good movie? If so, "In the Bedroom" is a great movie. No question about it, the acting from Tom Wilkinson (whom we don't see nearly often enough) and Sissy Spacek is of the highest caliber. Marisa Tomei has also garnered critical acclaim for her role, but I personally thought her character was the weakest part of the movie. Even though her ex-husband has "Violent Maniac Who Is Going to Hurt You Really Badly" tatooed on his forehead, she repeatedly whines "no, no, don't call the police." I doubt it's a compliment, but Tomei manages to portray "too stupid to live" very well. Even though the first three quarters of the movie are ponderously predictable, the finely nuanced performances by Spacek and Wilkinson make it worthwhile if not exactly enjoyable. The problem is the last quarter of the movie. Wilkinson is wasted on a plot twist that is unnecessary and inconsistent with the character he has meticulously created. In the final analysis, this is a good freshman effort, but I doubt it would be receiving as much attention if this were a stronger movie year.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant But Painful To Watch
Review: ... What struck me most about this movie was how well it conveyed the subject matter. When we left the theatre, my wife said "Was that a long movie or did it just feel long?" The answer is that it just felt long because you felt the suffering of this family as if it was your own. You felt the torture of trying to go on with your day to day tasks. You felt how every minute of every day becomes a painful eternity. You felt all of the hopelessness, all of the anger and all of the guilt. And when the movie ends, you don't walk out of the theatre with any sense of resolve. You leave feeling as empty as this family would feel after such horrible tragedy.

I don't know if this is a good movie. It is a great movie as far as the telling of the story and the incredible performances of all of the actors. Tom Wilkinson, Sissy Spacek, Marisa Tomei and the entire supporting cast are brilliant. However, this was a very painful movie to sit through.

Rating:
Summary: I don't really recommend this film...
Review: What can I say about this story? It's a modern day story of relationships gone wrong, the legal system dragging its feet, the victims taking matters into their own hands (not out of hate so much as out of desperation). This is not a very high budget film. The setting is a small fishing village. The characters are simple: a doctor (Matt Fowler), his high-school music teacher wife (Ruth Fowler), their bright architecture-student son (Frank Fowler), the ex-wife of a violent husband (Natalie), and the violent husband (Richard). When Richard tries to confront Natalie (who's currently in a relationship with the much-younger Frank), Frank gets in the way and gets his brains blown out. It's then a very depressing film to watch how Matt and Ruth copes with the loss of their son. Matt tries to forget, and Ruth is angry at him for this. She takes up smoking, stays at home and shuts the rest of the world out. The fact that the legal system will not provide the justice this couple seeks, drives Matt (in a desperate attempt to appease his wife, and save their relationship and bring closure to this tragedy) to exact his own justice.

This is not a fast paced movie. It doesn't even have a lot of action. What it does do well is showcase Sissy Spacek (who plays Ruth). In the film, Ruth starts out as a protective, sometimes-nagging mom. With Frank's death, she turns into a bitter recluse. A complete 180 that only talent can pull off. And she did it.

I'm giving it a low rating because despite the wonderful acting of Spacek, the film just dragged. A lot of dead air in an attempt to set the mood. Unfortunately, I wasn't in the mood.

Rating:
Summary: Ordinary People
Review: IN THE BEDROOM is a slice of life, at least a dark slice of life. The story centers on a New England family that is only as dysfunctional as the next. When their only son gets involved with an older woman (Marissa Tomei) who is not fully divorced from trip-hammer husband, shots are fired. Shots heard throughout the small Maine community. Now, the grieving parents (Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson) have to re-examine their lives without their son. All the time seeing their sons 'murderer' around town, freed on bail.

This is a character drama very similar to the wonderful ORDINARY PEOPLE. The direction is uncomfortably intimate as we see things difficult to watch, even more so when we see how we would have reacted under similar circumstances. The screenplay is taut although it does spend time saying things that are obvious to the viewer. Director TODD FIELD is very conservative with the film making, often resulting in a dredging pace that is sure to bore the short attention span. Most of all, IN THE BEDROOM offers two very detailed performances by Spacek and Wilkinson.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing happening in this bedroom!!!
Review: Before I watched this FILM I was expecting to watch a great movie. With all of the reviews from critics and the recent nomination for best picture of the year. But wohaooooo I was greatly, GREATLY disappointed. This was the first movie that I wanted to walk out on. But I stayed because I thought it would get better. I was wrong, it got worse. Sissy Spacet is also up for best actress. I don't see how because her characters role didn't really act. Wait a minute Sissy Spacet can't act. Maybe she should get another nose job. That could help. The only character that really went anywhere was Nick Stahl's. But He was killed in the first 20 minutes of the movie. The rest of the movie has virtually no sound, endless camera stares and pointless conversations. The two most interesting parts of the movie are when a girl guide sells chocolate bars and a man gets bit by a lobster. OUCH. The ending was no shocker. You knew what was going to happen for the last half an hour. I would not recommend this movie to anybody. Unless you are an insomniac. It'll help you get some sleep. Most of the people that like this movie can't think for themselves and agree with the select few critics that actually liked this film...

Rating:
Summary: Very good, but very slow.
Review: In the Bedroom (Todd Field, 2001)

Todd Field's first feature film feels like a first feature film. The movie is slow enough to be annoying. I've seen sleeping three-toed sloths that movie faster than this movie. Huge stretches of time go by without anything of consequence happening. Food gets put into the refrigerator and is immediately taken out, and has had time to spoil in the interim. Did I mention this movie is slow?

That said, every nomination the movie got is well-deserved. Sissy Spacek and Marisa Tomei are two of the most underappreciated actresses of their respective generations, and both are going through career revivals right now. Putting them together in here was a stroke of brilliance, and both give Oscar-worthy performances. Tom Wilkinson, as Spacek's husband, also gives a career-best performance, as does--well, pretty much everyone in the cast. I just wish they'd have done it a little faster.

The story, based on Andre Dubus' short story "Killings," is set in a small town on the coast of Maine. Frank Fowler (Nick Stahl [Eye of God, Disturbing Behavior, et al.]), an architecture student, is home from college and dating an older woman, Natalie Strout (Tomei). She's separated from her husband, but not divorced. The husband, Richard (William Mapother [from any number of Tom Cruise films-- probably because he's Cruise's cousin] ), is one of those nasty beer-and-a-wifebeater types prone to bouts of violence and not terribly happy about Frank messing with his property. (This, of course, is the attitude that drove his wife to leave him in the first place, but hey.) Richard and Frank get into a series of confrontations throughout the first hour of the film, culminating in a moment of violence that changes the situation drastically. You've probably read enough reviews of this film to know what happens (I saw it in so many reviews I assumed it happened in the first five minutes; I figured no one would reveal a major plot point that doesn't come until an hour into the film. More fool me.), but just in case you've been avoiding them, I'm not going to spoil your fun.

That's the climax of the film; the last hour deals with how the main characters respond to it over the course of the next few months. That's when it becomes obvious that the film creeps up on you. Somewhere along the way, while being annoyed at the movie's slowness, you've still come to care about the characters and what happens to them.

I've seen some noises made about the movie's supposedly unnecessary ending. Personally, I'd like to know what the people making those noises thought would have been more appropriate; the movie's ending seemed, to me, to be the only honest one available. I didn't think it was wrong at all, I just wish it would have happened with a bit more pace behind it. ***

Rating:
Summary: Talent Is What Matters
Review: Movies can cost 100 million or even 200 million dollars to make. Top stars are paid up to 30 million, and some make even more with a percentage of the gross. "In The Bedroom", has been nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. This film cost all of 1.3 million dollars to make.

The beauty of this film is not that its theme is unique; you have watched virtually all elements of this film before. What is wonderful about this movie is that the amount of talent that agreed to make this film, and to make it without any pretense. The identical film could have been made with an astronomical budget together with the highest paid actors. And if it had, it would have been a miserable failure. This story used everything it needed to tell its tale, and not a thing more. The director, who amazingly was ignored for a nomination after directing a Best Film Nominee, managed to bring together a group of actors and actresses to tell a tragic story, without pretense and without affectation.

If you are tired of movies that offer brute computing power in the place of storyline and actors. If you are tired of being talked down to. And if you are tired of watching films that bear zero resemblance to real life, then see this film.

This film will not knock you off of your seat. It takes it time and tells a tale at an appropriate pace without gimmicks and megabuck eye candy.

Rating:
Summary: A BEUTIFUL MOVIE
Review: A story that delves deep into human relationships, In the Bedroom can basically be described as a family drama about an older couple (Wilkinson and Spacek) coming to terms with their son's (Stahl) relationship with an older woman (Tomei). But this is no bland, soap operatic drama of family fighting; the directorial debut of actor Todd Field (Eyes Wide Shut) has earned universal critical acclaim and won the coveted Audience Award at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival.