"Now Fuck Off and Die"

Two more 2004 notches for my gun today. First up the painful but numb directorial debut of Nicole Kassell, The Woodsman [mixed], starring Kevin Bacon as a child molester just released from prison. His struggle to re-establish himself into society is predictably difficult - his family doesn't want to see him, his parole officers keep him under constant surveillance, he gets the evil eye from his lumberyard co-workers - all the while resisting the urges to approach the children at a nearby school.

Just like the equally well-played but disappointing The Assassination of Richard Nixon, The Woodsman is an intense character study rather than a conventionally realized drama, and from that perspective, it's good - not great, but certainly worth seeing for the acting. However, it never really gets off the ground the way it would've had to in order to promote itself as something else, and combined with such a bleak premise, it ultimately falls short of being that engaging. Also worth mentioning: the mighty Mos Def turns in another subtle and impressive performance as Bacon's parol officer. Good year for Mos the actor, less so for Mos the MC.

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There's a couple of great scenes in Closer [mixed+], the Mike Nichols-directed adaptation of Patrick Marber's play, and they all involve the phenomenal Clive Owen. His bitter and bold dismissal of Julia Roberts, as they argue over the graphic details of her infidelity, is an instant classic, on par with the best scenes in Nichols' battle-of-the-sexes shoutfests Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Carnal Knowledge. Owen is no stranger to this drama - he played the Jude Law part in the stage version of Closer, and that familiarity with the characters shows; his towering performance ironically upsets the balance of the movie, since no-one else matches him in acting chops. I have no real beef with the movie as it stands, but seeing that it is such a tightfisted emotional drama, with only four principle actors on the screen, a lot has to be demanded from these actors. And Owen can't do it all on his own.

Reading some of the criticism against Closer, I am a bit tempted to raise my rating for it, just for the hell of it. It's the same old criticism that arises whenever someone has the nerve to write a screenplay that features a) unsympathetic characters, and/or b) dialogue that sounds unnatural, "stagey", as if movies were "real". As a fan of the theatre, and movie writer-directors like Hal Hartley and Neil LaBute, I have absolutely no problems with either of those gripes.

It's strange that we (and by "we" I mean film critics and the movie-going public in general) still, in this day and age, need those "sympathetic" characters in order for us to feel the drama, the notion that we need to root for someone in order to get something out of the movie experience. I think it's bullshit, always have, always will. I don't need to align my emotions and attitudes to the ones of the characters on the screen or on the stage - if I feel it, I feel it, and that's all there is to it. And I'm glad I feel that way - otherwise my life wouldn't have been enriched by the likes of Strindberg, Ellroy, Tjechov, Lars Norén, Ionescu, Paul McCarthy, Charlie White and David Mamet. Thanks, y'all.