In The Bedroom

Surely on the most impressive debut films of the last decade, Todd Field's study of suburban grief is the kind of film that welcomes hyperbole. The story is focused on a middle-aged couple, Ruth and Matt Fowler (Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson), whose son Frank (Nick Stahl) is carrying on an affair with an older woman, Natalie (Marisa Tomei), who is still in the process of divorcing her abusive husband. How serious is Frank about Natalie? It's a question of great concern to Ruth, who is worried that the relationship will impinge upon his plans to study architecture at college. Matt is more benign about the situation, perhaps because he seems to harbour regrets of his own about pursuing a career in medicine rather than following in his father's footsteps as an offshore fisherman.

The first third of Field's movie is concerned with establishing location and character. The cast are given plenty of room to inhabit their characters, perfectly displaying the small tensions and concerns underlying the family dynamics. At the forty minute mark, the movie takes a tragic and unexpected twist. What follows is a study of the different ways in which people grieve, with the emphasis firmly on small details (Ruth's sureptitious glance as her husband helps himself to another glass of wine, a hand run over the ladder of an abandoned treehouse). A blazing row between Ruth and Matt in which truths are told and unkindnesses traded prompts a further, yet more unexpected twist.

Of the four main players, Sissy Spacek arguably makes the biggest impression. Her struggle not only to make sense of her own emotional reaction but also that of her husband's is palpable in every facial twitch, every gesture. Tom Wilkinson is almost as impressive, stoically providing the movie's necessary emotional core.

What is most remarkable about In The Bedroom is how both of its twists work so well in colouring your view of the remaining segment. The first third, a study of a New England family, is subtle, relaxed almost, giving the characters time and space to burrow their way into the viewer's subconscious. The second third is emotionally draining, horrifying, laced with the eerily beautiful Eastern European folk music that Ruth teaches at her school. Field's final act is one of tense manipulation. We know what's coming but we're uncertain as to whether we want to see it. Like David Cronenburg's later A History Of Violence, this is a study of suburban living, of how any disruptions, no matter how horrible, can be quelled, repressed and forgotten so that life as we know it can continue. As such, this is a chilling masterwork in grief and the reassertion of middle-class "normality" after a tragedy.