In The Bedroom

In The Bedroom Review

"In The Bedroom" is a fine drama about a middle aged New Hampshire couple - Yorkshireman and "The Full Monty" star Tom Wilkinson as Dr Matt Fowler and Sissy Spacek as his music teacher wife - and the way their lives slowly unfurl following the sudden death of their only child. Whilst passing the summer before going off to college their son Frank (Nick Stahl) has been seeing separated mother of two Natalie (Marisa Tomei) and, despite all protestations to the opposite, it seems the relationship is far more serious than Mom would like. However all that changes with his shocking death at the hands of Natalie's husband, a man with a handgun and a seriously bad haircut.

This is an intimate, character driven movie, with Wilkinson and Spacey both giving brilliantly low key performances as loving parents unable to accept what is happening to them. The film quite rightly won awards for director Todd Field when it was unveiled at The London Film Festival last year, and its amazing to think that this so confident and brilliantly executed film is in fact the actor's debut as director (although his experience on the other side of the camera no doubt helped his cast deliver such great performances). American critics have been praising Spacey's performance to the hilt, and the awards she has already won - including a Golden Globe - make it almost inevitable that she will at least be nominated for an Oscar this year. Let's hope that Tom Wilkinson also receives the praise he deserves, as in many ways the film belongs more to him than Spacek, particularly in the highly dramatic yet successfully understated final twenty minutes.