David O'ConnellReservation Road
October 9th 2009 04:04
A somber examination of grief versus guilt, Reservation Road (2007) hangs its hat on two coincidental developments that border on the absurd. The vagaries of fate dominate this drama and it’s a common, much-visited theme, but one previously given far superior treatments, most notably in Todd Field's masterful In the Bedroom (2001).
It’s late night on a lonely road in Connecticut; Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo) is returning home from a Boston Red Sox game with son Lucas (Eddie Alderson). Ethan Learner (Joaquin Phoenix) and his family have stopped at a diner on their way home from his son’s music recital. At the same moment Josh (Sean Curley) steps to the road to unbottle his firefly collection, a fatigued Dwight swerves to avoid a sudden distraction, knocking the boy to the ground.
In a moment of wild panic, Dwight flees the scene of the crime, whilst the mortified Ethan and wife Grace (Jennifer Connelly) are left to confront the horror of their dying son’s body. It’s a nightmarish scenario for any parent and for a while director Terry George - working from a screenplay co-written with author of the source novel, John Burnham Schwartz - is content to juxtapose the aftermath through the eyes of both fathers.
Ethan is inconsolable in his grief, but enraged by the perceived inaction of the police. Dwight is racked by a debilitating guilt, but falls into a predictable, mechanical mode of defensive thinking, concealing damage to his vehicle and hoping for divine intervention to erase that surreal split second of time.
Soon, the two ludicrous coincidences, upon which much of the dramatic impetus of the film hinges, rear their dubious heads: Dwight, in his job as an attorney, is assigned the case of gathering evidence against the killer - himself effectively – when Ethan insists on legal help to override the incompetent police investigation. (After a while you suspect he must be feeling a bit like S.A. Fred in Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly!)
Secondly, it just so happens that Dwight’s ex-wife Ruth (Mira Sorvino) is the dead boy’s music teacher. Now, one wildly improbable coincidence is pushing credibility to its outer limit, a second ushers in the sound of a death knell. And yet, Reservation Road is hard to look away from. Despite these fatal flaws in its construction, it remains eminently watchable throughout; it pulls you into its moral conundrum, smothering you wiith its doubtful, all-too-convenient conceit and B-grade Shakespearean pretensions.
Though it deals with some heavy subject matter, the film is certainly lacking in genuine potency, made more palatable for the sake of simplification. The couple’s post-trauma lives play out in predictable slivers, isolated moments of painful surrender: witness the unspooling of consolatory words, frigid embraces in the dead of night, and the occasional, oddly uncomfortable, histrionic outburst from a one-note Connelly who looks out of her depth with only the skeletal outline of a character to work with.
Hollywood loves to show how irony can just as conceivably encroach upon the seemingly untouchable lives of the prosperous with random, mocking visitations. In a non-too-subtle touch, one scene features a character bemoaning his outsider status, taking a swipe at Connecticut as “one of the most affluent, comfortable, safe places in the world.” The serious expression on Ethan’s face, and his wordless reply makes the expected response implicit: No it’s not, my son is dead.
Phoenix gives an admirably intense performance as the aggrieved, mournful father who seeks justice through whatever means necessary, but this isn’t his best work. He seems to be channeling Brando-esque overtones to imbue his suffering with the weight of moral outrage but it’s all surface; the screenplay only allows him to dig away at his wounded psyche with a plastic spoon rather than a giant shovel, which would have been far more interesting.
Ruffalo is given a thankless task as a man whose existence is consumed by a corrosive sense of culpability, but he probably comes off best, making Dwight’s predicament seem as believable as possible under the circumstances. In a sense Reservation Road in grounded in something akin to reality but again, the coincidental interlocking fates conspire against any reasoned positive evaluation. This is a disappointment from George who made such a splash with Hotel Rwanda three years previous. A direct-to-dvd judgment was probably a fair call.
It’s late night on a lonely road in Connecticut; Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo) is returning home from a Boston Red Sox game with son Lucas (Eddie Alderson). Ethan Learner (Joaquin Phoenix) and his family have stopped at a diner on their way home from his son’s music recital. At the same moment Josh (Sean Curley) steps to the road to unbottle his firefly collection, a fatigued Dwight swerves to avoid a sudden distraction, knocking the boy to the ground.
In a moment of wild panic, Dwight flees the scene of the crime, whilst the mortified Ethan and wife Grace (Jennifer Connelly) are left to confront the horror of their dying son’s body. It’s a nightmarish scenario for any parent and for a while director Terry George - working from a screenplay co-written with author of the source novel, John Burnham Schwartz - is content to juxtapose the aftermath through the eyes of both fathers.
Ethan is inconsolable in his grief, but enraged by the perceived inaction of the police. Dwight is racked by a debilitating guilt, but falls into a predictable, mechanical mode of defensive thinking, concealing damage to his vehicle and hoping for divine intervention to erase that surreal split second of time.
A disconsolate Ethan (Joaquin Phoenix)
Soon, the two ludicrous coincidences, upon which much of the dramatic impetus of the film hinges, rear their dubious heads: Dwight, in his job as an attorney, is assigned the case of gathering evidence against the killer - himself effectively – when Ethan insists on legal help to override the incompetent police investigation. (After a while you suspect he must be feeling a bit like S.A. Fred in Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly!)
Secondly, it just so happens that Dwight’s ex-wife Ruth (Mira Sorvino) is the dead boy’s music teacher. Now, one wildly improbable coincidence is pushing credibility to its outer limit, a second ushers in the sound of a death knell. And yet, Reservation Road is hard to look away from. Despite these fatal flaws in its construction, it remains eminently watchable throughout; it pulls you into its moral conundrum, smothering you wiith its doubtful, all-too-convenient conceit and B-grade Shakespearean pretensions.
Though it deals with some heavy subject matter, the film is certainly lacking in genuine potency, made more palatable for the sake of simplification. The couple’s post-trauma lives play out in predictable slivers, isolated moments of painful surrender: witness the unspooling of consolatory words, frigid embraces in the dead of night, and the occasional, oddly uncomfortable, histrionic outburst from a one-note Connelly who looks out of her depth with only the skeletal outline of a character to work with.
Dwight (Mark Ruffalo) with ex-wife Ruth (Mira Sorvino)
Hollywood loves to show how irony can just as conceivably encroach upon the seemingly untouchable lives of the prosperous with random, mocking visitations. In a non-too-subtle touch, one scene features a character bemoaning his outsider status, taking a swipe at Connecticut as “one of the most affluent, comfortable, safe places in the world.” The serious expression on Ethan’s face, and his wordless reply makes the expected response implicit: No it’s not, my son is dead.
Phoenix gives an admirably intense performance as the aggrieved, mournful father who seeks justice through whatever means necessary, but this isn’t his best work. He seems to be channeling Brando-esque overtones to imbue his suffering with the weight of moral outrage but it’s all surface; the screenplay only allows him to dig away at his wounded psyche with a plastic spoon rather than a giant shovel, which would have been far more interesting.
Ruffalo is given a thankless task as a man whose existence is consumed by a corrosive sense of culpability, but he probably comes off best, making Dwight’s predicament seem as believable as possible under the circumstances. In a sense Reservation Road in grounded in something akin to reality but again, the coincidental interlocking fates conspire against any reasoned positive evaluation. This is a disappointment from George who made such a splash with Hotel Rwanda three years previous. A direct-to-dvd judgment was probably a fair call.
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Love the cast of this film but have read too many reviews that state its weaknesses overriding the strengths. Maybe one day on DVD...great review though as always
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic