Some thoughts on this film:
-Many people called this film "actors' film" and I think by saying that they really underestimate In the Bedroom. Todd Field deserved to be honor here because he was as important (if more) as the three performances.
-The film used silence, the inability to express to each others with patient but compelling look
-The performances that elevate In the Bedroom for good to really great and complex drama. Tom Wilkinson (which I always enjoy) delivers his best performance, the same goes with Sissy Spacek and Marisa Tomei. The kitchen scene was so real and emotional that you don't feel like they acting anymore, but they are the real characters.
-The ending is very strong. Todd…

Without wanting to think too deeply about the psychological ramifications for me or any audience, I will confess to being an enthusiast of especially violent films. Acts of shocking violence therefore, in some contexts, can be almost cathartic for me. Watching Peckinpah or John Woo, and seeing dozens of men shot horribly to death, will actually put a smile on my face.

But here is a film that is about violence and has very little of it. One or two isolated incidences that, compared to most films today, are almost g rated. The violence in this movie shocked me. I had to pause the movie and sat their stunned contemplating what I had seen. Because this was an act of…

"There are things of which I may not speak;
There are dreams that cannot die;
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
And bring a pallor into the cheek,
And a mist before the eye.
And the words of that fatal song
Come over me like a chill:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'"

Matt (Tom Wilkinson) and Ruth (Sissy Spacek) are the happily married parents of Frank (Nick Stahl) who is back at home working for the summer in Maine as a lobster fisherman. They strongly disapprove of his new relationship with Natalie (Marisa Tomei) who is older than Frank, has young children, and an unpleasant ex-husband…

The most satisfying thing about In the Bedroom is watching all the strings tighten with such confidence, such authenticity, such unabashed, non-manipulative poignancy. The film doesn't just present a potent, distressing emotional center, it spins it in a fundamental, yet original fashion. It reminds me of great family dramas like Ordinary People and The Ice Storm, but more intimately structured, more reminiscent of how things in the real world unfold - and why. It takes its time developing relationships which have decayed and lay dormant: A husband and wife whose communication skills have become a polite amity, a son who means well but acts selfishly, and a very realistic divorced couple (one who acknowledges the legal separation, one who doesn't).…