Word: spacek
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...BEDROOM A promising youth is stupidly murdered in a small New England town, and his parents (superbly played by Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek) grapple with how their silences and evasions contributed to the crime. And with how to achieve the vengeance their troubled souls require. Director Todd Field builds patiently toward a melodramatic conclusion that's as plausible as his sympathetic evisceration of middle-class life is compelling...
...Bedroom--but no particular sexual heat. Todd Field, its first-time feature director, seems never to have looked at, let alone made, a music video. This is a patient movie, carefully studying what happens to an unexciting middle-class couple, Matt and Ruth Fowler (Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek), when their good, gifted son Frank (Nick Stahl) is carelessly killed in a small Maine town...
...unfair to single her out when Spacek and Wilkinson so gracefully manage most of the movie's heaviest lifting. But they have always been predictably expert actors. Tomei's career path is radically different. She came out of nowhere to win the supporting-actress Oscar, over more prestigious competitors, for her hilarious work in 1992's My Cousin Vinny. Then, and just as suddenly, she swooned into off-Broadway plays and smallish roles in obscure films, where she also gained a reputation as "difficult." Now she's back, and damned if people aren't talking Oscar nomination again...
...scientific logic is silly and annoying, but since the movie's premise is already ridiculous--who cares? The first part of the movie is carried by Spacek and Walken. With his pasty face and taped-up glasses, Walken skillfully combines the roles of the paranoid scientist and conservative father. His brief foray into the world of hookers and porn shops is a scream. Spacek is convincing as a perky housewife with secret drunken tendencies and a potential for a nervous breakdown. When they rejoice, they do the twist. Fortunately for the movie, they know when to perk up their Ozzie...
Calvin's underground house is a wonder itself, with a huge fishpond, fake outdoors patio and early 60s kitsch. Plus, it boasts a stockroom so big that the mother can still push around a shopping cart. Buildings seem to be catchy way to describe the changing times. Spacek bakes pot roasts in a peaceful, tidy home. Above, Mom's Malt Shop sprouts up in place of the Webbers' old house and gradually devolves into a filthy hangout for druggies...