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Karen
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| Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 6:10 pm Post subject: RR Reviews |
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As I have tried to steer clear of reviews before I see the film, I am not sure if this has been posted yet? Apologies if you all have seen/read it:
FILMSTEW
Then there is Hotel Rwanda director Terry George's Reservation Road and Carl Bessai's Normal. The first is a slick Hollywood weepie with a phenomenal cast that includes Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Connelly, while Carrie-Anne Moss heads up Vancouver-based Bessai's far more modest drama. Both films limn the aftermath of an accident in which a child was killed, capturing the parents' grief and rage and the guilt of the person who caused the accident.
The pain is fresher in Reservation Road, as lawyer Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo) loses control of his SUV momentary and plows into 10-year-old Josh (Sean Curley), killing him instantly in front of his horrified father Ethan (Joaquin Phoenix), before driving off in a moment of panic and fear. Normal begins two years after Catherine's (Moss) teenage son Nick died. Walt (Callum Keith Rennie), a college professor and failed writer, drunk, hit the stolen car Nick was joyriding in with his best friend Jordie (Kevin Zegers), but was not held legally responsible for the accident.
The matrix of personal tragedy
Both Reservation Road and Normal offer dark portraits of people whose lives changed forever in an instant and who may never be able to move past this defining moment, whether they suffered the loss or caused it, that moment ruptured time. Rage, despair and the feeling that their boys' killers will not be held accountable for their actions are all that is left to Ethan and Catherine.
Dwight is a walking dead man, his guilt utterly consuming him. On the face of it, Walt has moved on as he starts an affair with a pretty student and takes care of his autistic younger brother, but he keeps a clipping about the accident, a reminder that keeps his guilt fresh. It was alcohol that got him into trouble that night, but now he drinks to dull that memory.
So far, so much the same, but Reservation Road turns into something of a thriller as Ethan, disgusted that his child's killer would serve no more than 10 years if he is ever caught, becomes obsessed with finding the hit-and-run driver and it seems unlikely that he will call the police if he does. Catherine harbors no such Death Wish fantasies, but anger and grief are her intimate companions, leaving no room for her alienated husband or her surviving child (Cameron Bright). Guilt also drives her as she realizes more and more that she never really knew Nick and that while Jordie may have stolen the car, the idea to do it might have been Nick's.
Both movies offer phenomenal performances. In Reservation Road, Ruffalo is particularly effective as the tortured Dwight, while Moss, Rennie, and Zegers are terrific negotiating their separate rungs of living hell in Normal. The latter is the superior drama, keeping the story very simple as it concentrates on the characters and their emotional landscape.
Reservation Road, in contrast, falls curiously flat. It is partially because that thriller aspect feels false; Ethan's quest for vigilante revenge does not fit the character. Also, it is a curious movie in that Dwight comes across as the far more sympathetic character, in spite of the fact that he is the one that has done the horrible thing and then tried to evade responsibility for it. Reservation Road plays like just another Hollywood movie, while Normal – which is far from perfect – is messier but resonant. It feels more like real life.
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Rosie
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| Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 7:00 pm Post subject: |
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"Reservation Road plays like just another Hollywood movie, while Normal – which is far from perfect – is messier but resonant. It feels more like real life."
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This sounds very curious to me. Now if it feels like "real life" doesn't that mean more like hitting the nail on the head?
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hazeleyes
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| Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 7:18 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks Karen. All I can say about the review is hmmmm........ interesting.
We will enjoy the movie no matter what critics say. 
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Karen
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| Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 8:12 pm Post subject: |
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Apologies again if this one is already posted elsewhere-
Not too complimentary again......
Toronto
Reservation Road
By TODD MCCARTHY
Mark Ruffalo keeps a painful secret from Joaquin Phoenix in Terry George's 'Reservation Road,' based on John Burnham Schwartz's book.
A Focus Features (in U.S.) release, presented with Random House Films, of a Nick Wechsler/Miracle Pictures production, in association with Volume One Entertainment. Produced by Wechsler, A. Kitman Ho. Executive producers, Dean M. Leavitt, Gina Resnick. Directed by Terry George. Screenplay, John Burnham Schwartz, George, based on the novel by Schwartz.
Ethan Learner - Joaquin Phoenix
Dwight Arno - Mark Ruffalo
Grace Learner - Jennifer Connelly
Ruth Wheldon - Mira Sorvino
Emma Learner - Elle Fanning
Lucas Arno - Eddie Alderson
Josh Learner - Sean Curley
Sergeant Burke - Antoni Corone
Steve - John Slattery
Minister - John Rothman
Norris Wheldon - Gary Kohn
A dramatic situation that should be wrenching is mostly tedious in "Reservation Road." Tale of two New England fathers, one of whom kills the other's son in a hit-and-run auto accident and takes the entire picture to fess up to it, deals with painful, elemental emotions, to be sure. But the film has no special insight into the psyches of either man, or into the broader issues of how to process profound loss or admit culpability for a heinous act. As pic offers scant emotional rewards or catharsis, it's hard to imagine auds flocking to this downbeat drama in any significant numbers.
Novel by John Burnham Schwartz, who is credited with the adaptation along with director Terry George, was well received in 1998, and has been updated mainly to place the action simultaneously with the Boston Red Sox's successful World Series drive in 2004 -- the only upbeat aspect of the story.
The central tragedy, presented in the opening minutes, thereafter hangs over the characters like a black shroud. On the way home from an outdoor student concert late one summer evening, 10-year-old Josh Learner, son of Ethan (Joaquin Phoenix) and Grace (Jennifer Connelly) and brother of Emma (Elle Fanning), is accidently hit near a gas station along a rural Connecticut road. Behind the wheel of the Ford Explorer is Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo), who's racing back from Fenway Park to drop son Lucas (Eddie Alderson) at the home of his impatient ex, Ruth (Mira Sorvino).
Realizing he's hit something in the dark, Dwight instinctively hesitates, then continues on, as he's already nervous about being late. Back at the station, the Learners' devastation is awful, yet predictable in its appalling emotion; after all, how many different ways are there to dramatize such a scene?
Similarly familiar are the scenes of family grieving, the funeral, anger, guilt, sleeplessness, recriminations and growing husband-wife estrangement as they try to cope in different ways, Grace by working her way through it and Ethan by becoming obsessed with achieving justice by any means necessary.
In the story's great coincidence, when Ethan goes to hire a local attorney to help him with his case, the man he is assigned is -- Dwight himself. The way he's presented here, Dwight is such a screw-up -- as a husband, father and member of society -- that it's hard to believe he made it through law school and can hold down such a job. He just does manage to hold it together while speaking professionally with the distraught Ethan.
But when it becomes clear that Dwight doesn't intend to just get it over with and do the right thing -- he does try to turn himself in once, but the police are too busy to listen to him -- the whole film becomes a waiting game for the inevitable confrontation between the two men once the cards are all on the table. Unfortunately, it's far longer in coming than it should be, with little edification offered in the interim.
The talented thesps all work up a sweat portraying their characters' pent-up tension and anger, resulting in performances that are intense, overwrought and on the nose, with no surprises. Story is so single-mindedly about timidity (Dwight) and anger (Ethan) and nothing else that it quickly grows tiresome.
One specific shortcoming is the way it depicts Red Sox mania; as die-hard Boston fans, Dwight and his son should be brimming with anxiety and excitement as the playoffs and series progress -- they follow them on television -- but the games don't seem to quicken their pulses even a bit.
Pic does benefit from actual Connecticut locations.
Camera (Technicolor), John Lindley; editor, Naomi Geraghty; music, Mark Isham; music supervisors, Budd Carr, Nora Felder; production designer, Ford Wheeler; art director, Kim Jennings; set decorator, Chryss Hionis; costume designer, Catherine George; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS), Gary Alper; supervising sound editor, Paul Urmson; re-recording mixer, Tom Fleischman; assistant director, Glen Trotiner; second unit director, A. Kitman Ho; second unit camera, Craig DiBona; casting, Amanda Mackey, Cathy Sandrich Gelfond. Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival (Gala Presentations), Sept. 12, 2007. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 102 MIN.
VARIETY
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Rosie
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| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 9:54 pm Post subject: |
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I found this today, haven't seen it posted here yet...if it is a repeat, well... it is a good one:
'Reservation Road' spotlights sombre mood in America
Updated Thu. Sep. 13 2007 9:24 AM ET
Constance Droganes
Mark Ruffalo and Joaquin Phoenix are two Hollywood actors who get along.
Jabbing and joking like two brothers at a lengthy church sermon, the giggling pair roughhoused a bit during their press conference at the Toronto International Film Festival. Such camaraderie seems inevitable after working on a gut-wrenching new film such as "Reservation Road."
Directed by Terry George and co-starring Mira Sorvino and Jennifer Connelly, this tragic tale follows two fathers and their converging lives after a terrible accident takes place one warm September evening. One family is driving back to their lovely Connecticut residence after their son's concert. In another car a father and son head home after a great time at a baseball game.
Then in one fleeting instant at a gas station on Reservation Road, calamity strikes the two unsuspecting families.
"Considering the heavy nature of subject matter we had a lot of fun," says Sorvino. She, like Connelly, play the two wives left reeling in the aftermath of this fatal accident.
Being a mother didn't stop Connelly from tackling George's tough new film.
"I couldn't let myself think about my own children," she confesses, using books on grief, death and dying instead to prepare for the role.
As Connelly says, "I try not to bring work home with me but I had terrible dreams. It really affected me."
A nightmare in Connecticut
For George, setting this drama in one of the most beautiful places in the America seemed only fitting.
"I wanted to make a film about two people in Connecticut - the nicest place in the world - and have the worst thing happen to them," says George.
"Hopefully people will go and see the movie and think that could have been me."
Beyond the death of a child - a parent's worst nightmare, "Reservation Road" is also driven by a sense of powerlessness that many Americans are feeling today.
"Both men feel powerless in the middle of such chaos and I think this film explores that," says Sorvino.
The mood of a decade
Moving the film's themes to a wider, contemporary political context, Sorvino says, "If there is a feeling of the decade it's passivity on the part of citizens to take charge of what is happening in their world."
With so many political movies at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, George says, "It's the zeitgeist of the moment. There's a more sombre mood in America."
Calling this new crop of films "a moral voice" and part of "the subconscious of the culture," Ruffalo points his finger, as have many at this festival, to the war in Iraq.
"We didn't ask enough questions before we invaded Iraq. We know that it's wrong to demonize an entire culture without knowing about it. But to this day we still don't know about Muslims and what their beef is," says Ruffalo.
When asked about an orange bracelet that he and pal Phoenix have tied about their wrists, Ruffalo says it's part of his personal campaign to have President George W. Bush impeached.
Phoenix turns to his friend, smile beaming, saying, "You didn't tell me that."
Once again the friendly pokes and jabs resume between the two men, proving that in some rare cases politics and tragedy can make for good company.
- Constance Droganes, entertainment writer, CTV.ca
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I like the way this writer spoke about Mark and Joaquin together... They did act like two brothers hamming it up. It was nice to see... especially considering the heavy nature of what they portrayed together.
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