Grade:  B

Director:  Todd Field		Released:  December 2001
Writer:  Robert Festinger, Todd Field		MPAA Rating:  R
Players:  Tom Wilkinson, Sissy Spacek, Marisa Tomei, Nick Stahl, William Mapother		Running time:  130 minutes

Ratings System

This is a very high caliber film.  It's well written, well acted, well directed, and well produced.  It's one of the best films of 2001, no doubt.  Right up until the story goes into the garbage and it breaks all the rules it spent 90 minutes setting up.

It's not a Sixth Sense style twist ending, but some events unfold that do not fit into the rest of the story.  The first two-thirds of In The Bedroom tells an emotional story, and creates real characters with realistic problems.  Then, something happens that I feel does not fit into the realism of the story at all.  It asks me to suspend disbelief to a point where I just can't do it.  It stretches too far.  The characters that I watched for 90 minutes, that this film introduced me to, and brought me into their home, would not have done the things that they do in the final act.  It feels as if the writer may have lived through the events as they occured, and then tacked on the ending because it's what he wishes he had done.

That aside, this is still an excellent film, and I know many people who were not bothered at all by the way it plays out.  Marisa Tomei was my choice to win the best supporting actress Oscar.

- crocoPuffs