Stars: Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, Marisa Tomei, Nick Stahl, William Mapother and William Wise
Director: Todd Field
The film: It's hard to examine Todd Field's debut without giving away keys to the plot. Those interested in preserving the suspense should skip to the verdict at this point.
It's just as tough to avoid polishing the cliche that they don't make movies like this anymore. In The Bedroom mixes the late Andre Dubus' short story Killings with the conventions of a cinematic thriller. Plot twists unsettle the security of a middle-aged, middle-class couple and test their reactions. The film slows in its look at parental loss but the script stays tight, keeping you on the hook and reeling you in sharply.
Frank Fowler (Stahl) is home from college for the summer, playing at being a professional fisherman and having a fling with a 30-ish woman, Natalie (Tomei), a mother of two embroiled in a messy separation from her husband, Richard (Mapother, cousin of Tom Cruise). His parents - Matt (Wilkinson), the town doctor and Ruth (Spacek, below with Wilkinson), a teacher consumed by Balkan choral music - are too earnestly broadminded to admit that their misgivings over the working-class woman are anything but concern for Frank's education.
A film about young love becomes one about love that has soured when Richard kills Frank. Ruth and Matt are forced to address the hole left by the murder of their only child, the focus of the marriage. Richard is on bail and likely to spend only five years behind bars for manslaughter. Stripped of routine, the Fowlers search for answers and justice in work, religion, art and alcohol. When Ruth and Matt address their pain, they find they still share hatred for the killer.