In the Bedroom

[Ghostboy]

I really loved it. I had a slight problem with the revenge -- but when I thought about it, I couldn't think of any other way I'd have ended the movie. SPOILERS At first I thought that perhaps Tom Wilkinson could have lost his nerve in the woods and let the guy go, which would have definitely added an interesting twist to the denoument with him and Spacek in bed. But I think that it's fine the way it is.

I love the quiet in the film the most. The tension it suggests is almost unendurable. The moment where Spacek slaps Marisa Tomei is shocking.

[TenaciousDoll]

I agree, that slap was shocking.


But for me, the movie was ruined because before I saw "In the Bedroom," I saw Wilkinson in another movie where he played a transgender.  So all through the movie, I kept expecting him to get out a pair of falsies.

[Teen Wolf]

When In The Bedroom came out, I was living in the middle of nowhere. I had to drive an hour and a half to the nearest city in order to see it.

It was, and is, one of the only movies in recent memory that I saw fresh.
You see, not only was I living out in the middle of nowhere, I was also going through a phase where I was trying to restrict myself from watching television and surfing the internet. The idea was to live in a sort of vacuum.

Anyway, it was during this monk-like stage of my life when I saw In The Bedroom. It wrecked me.

Driving home that night, I felt as if I had just been in a fight, where some awful, irrevocable things were said to someone I care about. A movie has never made me feel like that before. I haven't seen it since.

[filmcritic]

I had to drive 3 hours to see it the first time.

[MacGuffin]

Todd Field Takes the Back Roads
Source: Variety

Todd Field (In the Bedroom) is developing Back Roads, based on the best-selling novel by Tawni O'Dell, for DreamWorks Pictures with an eye to possibly direct.

Set in western Pennsylvania's mining country, amid Eat 'n' Parks and Lick 'n' Putts, "Back Roads" follows a teenager whose mother is in jail for killing his abusive father and who's left to care for his three younger sisters. Meanwhile, he has taken an interest in a sexy, melancholic mother of two down the road.

Writers Paul Todisco and Ethan Gross, who both worked on Guy Ritchie's upcoming Revolver, will adapt the screenplay.

Field is currently at work on Time Between Trains, which centers on 19th century tragedian Edwin Booth.

[Finn]

Excellent! I'm looking forward to it.

[MacGuffin]

Todd Field Helming Perotta's Little Children
Source: Variety

Tom Perrotta, the writer of "Election," has made a deal in which he will adapt his new book "Little Children" for the big screen for In the Bedroom director Todd Field to helm.

"Children" is described as matching the family dysfunction of American Beauty with the comedy of Perrotta's "Election," which was adapted by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor. The book is expected to land at Paramount Pictures.

The novel features suburban town full of perfect parents who are fully devoted to rearing their children for Harvard futures and keeping them safe from predators. The adults escape the excruciating bore-fests their lives have become via Internet porn and extramarital affairs. It concentrates on the affair between one stay-at-home mom with an ex-jock stay-at-home dad who rebels against his wife's wishes that he become a big-bucks lawyer.

[matt35mm]

I saw it in the theater, and liked it a lot.  I bought it recently and re-watched it, and appreciate it a whole lot more.  This is a great, great movie.

SPOILERS I GUESS

It's perhaps as horrifying as a movie can possibly be, because losing a child strikes me as the absolutely worst fear realized.  You go through life making plans and hoping, just hoping that your family, especially your child, are okay.  You can deal with ANYTHING, anything but that.

This movie knows so perfectly when to be subtle, and when not to hold back.  This results in some brutally shocking moments that were more crushing to me today than anything in a movie has been for a while (more crushing today than it was the first time I saw it).  I felt that the ending was just perfect.  I didn't find it melodramatic or unnatural or sensational.  When I first watched it, I had the slight sensation that it might've been a little overhyped, but now I declare it underrated.  With such a sorrowful song, this movie didn't miss a single note, and it hit me hard and resonated deeply.  I think multiple viewings make it so much better, because the shifting of what the movie seems to be about is a little bit of a distraction, whereas knowing what happens give it an air of devastation from the first frame.  I was able to sit back and be absorbed by what was happening on screen, and by the tremendous acting, rather than thinking about where this was heading.

This is a movie that understands its characters so fully, and, to me, displays an important view of America today.  This is a masterpiece.

[Gamblour.]

NEVER READ WHAT I'M ABOUT TO WRITE IF YOU EVER PLAN SEEING THIS FILM:


When I first saw it, and there's that shot, where the camera moves down to see that horrific image of the kid...I remember not being able to recover for the rest of the film. This film is absolutely incredible, and I'm really pissed I forgot about it when nominating my films. Hopefully someone remembered?

[JG]

i don't know if it would have made my top 30 but it certainly is in the top 10 of the decade. 

[Myxo]

i don't know if it would have made my top 30 but it certainly is in the top 10 of the decade. 

Uhm, ok.

[private witt]

People may comment about the slow pacing of ITBR, but every scene tells us something very important that no other scene does.  There's not a moment the film repeats an idea.

And the ending is perfect.  These two people who thought they were going to be able to move on after they did what they did.  And the husband realizing they would never be the same while the wife was still pretending things were somehow back to normal.  Effin' marvelous.