Reservation Road

I don't have children and am therefore not in a position to ever lose one at a young age. This film, however, has brought me about as close to the living hell of what that awful experience would be like as a person can be without the actual first hand experience of living it. This is an excellent film; written well, filmed well, directed well, and with actors as good as you'll ever see in anything. And it will never get the respect it deserves because it eschews the "Hollywood" proforma cadence of either a tiding happy ending or complete descent into carnal madness. Instead, it goes to where things are real and much more difficult to take in.

The main story revolves around two families connected by the same tragedy. Specifically, two fathers played by Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo. They are quite literally unbelievable; two great actors at their greatest. Along with Jennifer Connelly, these three take you to a shattered place that is hard to look at and you never want to go to for yourself. It is a dark place where there are no winners and seemingly no hope. It is a place that you can only hope to survive. And if you are a survivor, you will never be the same or as good as you were before. Your marriage will not be the one you had before. Your relationship with your children will never be the same. All that being said, this is not a hopeless story. It is just a difficult one to watch because anyone can identify with it at a human level.

More than the unfolding of this story there is an unsettling tightening of the narrative as this plot develops. Unexpected cross currents in the lives of its antagonists are revealed bringing this story of grief and loss to a boiling point. The victim's father and the perpetrator, unbelievably, have overlaps in their everyday lives; separate and apart from the one that will link them together forever. Their climactic encounter will leave you shaken.

I knew nothing about this film when I watched it a couple of years ago. Literally, nothing. I watched it for two reasons; Mark Ruffalo and Joaquin Phoenix. I was expecting a lot but I got so much more. I tend to go into a lot of detail when writing about a film as good as this one. The 1000 word limit that IMDb allows would never be enough to cover the multi amazing facets of this work. And doing so would require going more into the plot than I think would be useful for, or do justice to, this sorrowful gem. Watch it for yourself. It needs no explanation from me or anyone else. It speaks quite well for itself.

I didn't know much about RR when I grabbed it off the shelf at my local video store, but I was enticed by the cast so I decided to take it for a spin. It really ended up surprising me because I hadn't heard anything about it and wasn't really expecting too much out of it. In the end though, I ended up liking the movie a lot. There were parts where I was very very moved and it was just too hard to not be on the side of Joaquin, and then moments later you flash to Mark Ruffalo and I understood in a way what he was going through. Throughout the movie my feelings for Ruffalo changed greatly. At first, of course, it was immediate hatred for him, but as I got to know him I started to feel for him before again being completely sickened by him in the end. Most movies can't take you on a ride the way that I was taken for this one, I was really moved at parts and completely sickened at others. These days you don't get many movies that take you on this kind of a journey, and I salute any film that doesn't just stick with a simple cookie cutter plot that I can predict before it starts. Sometimes we need something like this to remind us what good movies really are. For me the acting was superb and the plot kept you thinking. This is definitely one that I think you should go out and watch.

Begins as a sensitive and involving drama guilt but ends up degenerating into a corny story; the cast is good enough but the story gets more and more clichéd. It starts telling the difficulty in coping with a terribly tragic event and describing the fragility of all the characters, that is really felt. The actors bring an intensity to the characters that is really deep. Phoenix and Ruffalo, as well as Connelly, offer a strong emotional foundation that makes them real and genuinely painful. The thing is that coincidences and links between the events are in the end too many and everything risks of falling to pieces, a real pity because the plot was initially very promising.

The issues dealt with in this movie are real, and I can see many people who will be able to draw from their own experiences when watching this film. You may wonder sometimes if an accident happens, how long can you hold a person accountable for? Jennifer Connelly is again a mesmerizing presence on the silver screen. I watched tonight's screening of Reservation Road in Sudbury at our Cinefest festival expecting it to tug an emotional chord. I have to say, it was touching to see all the parents in the audience shedding a tear when the credits rolled. Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo made a somewhat formulaic script feel fresh and real.

I knew nothing about the plot when I rented this film. With Joaquin Phoenix, Jennifer Connelly and Mark Ruffalo starring in it, I figured it would be, at the very least, good, and it was. From the beginning scenes, a palpable tension is created; you just know something awful is about to happen despite two normal family outings being the subject matter. From then on, the plot reels out in an arc rife with too many coincidences, but the direction was able to pull it off without making me want to groan. There are some emotional scenes that would have played a little better had they been more subtle. The police officer and Mark Ruffalo were flawless. The children were outstanding. I'm not sure if it was Joaquin's character, the script, the direction or what, but he did not keep me riveted as he usually does; a bit over-acted perhaps. Jennifer delivered a couple of lines that didn't ring true--could have been an editing problem. The obsession of anger/justice seems a bit premature. It would have been better to see a progression. Despite my criticisms, I found enough mastery and depth of character to recommend it and give it a 7. I found myself worrying that the ending would ruin the film but it was faultless and convincing.