6/11/2005: Views: The Woodsman
The Woodsman 2004, dir. Nicole Kassell
(contains spoilers)
I'd been looking forward to this one - I like Kevin Bacon and I like edgy subject matter - but The Woodsman really disappointed. It's got amateurish direction, unrealistic character dialog & actions, sloppy continuity, and worst of all, it chickens out and never says whatever it was trying to say.
Anyone who pays any attention to current movies knows this one has Kevin Bacon portraying a pedophile. The filmmakers knew this fact would be touted around during the pre-release publicity and post-release reviews, yet they spend way too long in the beginning drawing out the "mystery" of what his secret is, what his crime had been about. We already know - get on with it!
They also ask us to swallow far more coincidences than are plausible. For instance, the newly-paroled sex offender just happens to have a guy stalking kids right outside his window. Also, too many scenes are contrived and make for soap-opera melodrama and very cheap, easy shots: Bacon just happens to be standing on a bus (which has empty seats) so a little girl can brush against him and freak him out.. he is seated during all his many other bus rides. The bedroom door is closed although no one else is there, just so Bacon can dramatically open said door, point, and angrily tell girlfriend Kyra Sedgwick to "get out."
He lives across the street from a grammar school and says he likes watching the kids arrive in the morning - but he works at a lumbermill. Surely he's already at work or at least on his way by the time a K-6 school opens. Two people who know he works a regular M-F day job ask him if the noise from the school bothers him. Come on! He's at work when school's open - well, except for the many, many times he stares wistfully out the window at the kids in the playground. And to make it worse, one of the people who asks that question is Bacon's brother-in-law, who knows why he was in prison, but he asks about the noise of all things? Nothing about all those kids under Bacon's nose? It's not like he's being polite or feigning ignorance of the crime: he's married to Bacon's sister, who refuses to see him. The brother-in-law is well aware of his place in the middle of these two and why, but he asks about noise from the school. Eyeroll moment #23.
We've also got a parole officer - in Philadelphia - who apparently has enough time to follow and observe Bacon pretty much all the time. I don't think Philly parole officers have that kind of time on their hands, do they?
As if all that isn't enough distraction away from whatever story we're trying to follow, when the lumberyard workers get off work early in the movie, it's early spring and still light. A few weeks later it's dark when they clock out. Maybe it's a progressive lumberyard with flex scheduling.. yea, that must be it.
But wait, there's more: the metaphors are not only mixed in this movie, they're everywhere, flying around and out of control. First we've got a wood theme, in the title and the lumberyard and a lovingly-crafted cherrywood table that plays a supporting role (for no apparent reason.) We've also got a bird theme that starts when Bacon hangs up a bird feeder - suddenly he's the "Birdman of Alcatraz" and a sympathetic character, except for the overblown symbolism everwhere that pre-adolescent girls are like birds to him. Then we drift over to "Little Red Riding Hood" and discover the title refers to the guy who hacked open the big bad wolf, setting Red free and miraculously unharmed. Oh hey, unharmed, I get it.. so if a pedophile molests but doesn't actually rape, knife, or kill the kids, it's all good? Ok, got it.
It all merges together later, when Bacon stalks a little girl who's into.. birdwatching! Her name is.. Robin! Coincidentally, her daddy molests her in the same way.. Bacon likes! Wow, what are the odds? Even though Robin's dialog is off the charts as far as credibility ("My daddy lets me sit on his lap" - lets? LETS?? She would not make this confession with the word "lets"!) But this is, of course, A Shining Magical Wondrous Defining Moment for our hero/anti-hero: he realizes how wrong he's been, and he sends little Robin home.. to creepy Daddy! She heads off, throwing her bright red riding hood coat over her shoulder! (Sorry, but the little girl's bright red coat revelation was a one-use-only movie scene, and Spielberg did it - much better - in Schindler's List.)
Following bad movie tradition, the Shining Defining Moment instantly turns Bacon into a militant anti-pedophile activist, and he beats the crap out of the guy he's been watching stalk the playground kids.. after the guy has taken a little boy and done whatever he did to him. It isn't about protecting the kids, see, it's about assaulting the perpetrators after the fact. Ok, got it. The ever-observant parole officer with time on his hands questions Bacon about the severe attack in the neighborhood, and about the scratch on Bacon's neck, but apparently doesn't see anything odd about Bacon's hands that just broke someone's jaw and nearly killed the guy. Parole dude also takes in stride parolee's statement that he's moving in with his girlfriend, but doesn't bother to ask where.. I guess he'll just follow the truck over there.
But the worst thing about this movie is that it totally cops out on the delicate subject matter it pretends to be "brave" enough to tackle. The filmmakers define chickenshit on this one. They can't decide if they're sympathetic to Bacon's character or repulsed, or how we should feel about him, and they can't even bring themselves to describe his crimes and early incest experiences as anything more than "smelling her hair." They throw around a lot of talk show pop psychology buzzwords, and obviously have no real understanding of their subject matter at all.
Bacon seems to be carrying around a lot of guilt, but he makes several comments that make it clear the only thing he really resents are the 12 years spent in prison. That lost time is what he regrets.. not what put him there. He cries out one time that he's "not a monster" and he tells Sedgwick that he "never hurt" any of his victims, using that convenient "no harm, no foul" rule again. He's angry and surly and miserable the whole time, which inexplicably draws Kyra Sedgwick's attention. She sees "something good in him, even if he can't." Well, she's a tough, hot-tempered, cussing forklift driver who hates every other guy she knows, so sure, she's gonna fall for the sullen guy who can't look her in the eyes. It all makes sense. And of course, in yet another amazing coincidence, she was molested by her brothers as a child - but no harm done! (Eyeroll moment #72)
Even worse than that, and this is criminal in my opinion, the only parts of this movie that come close to being truthful and heartfelt were deleted. The DVD deleted and extra scenes show an expanded conversation with little Robin that's gut wrenching, and in which Bacon actually gives her the proper advice on what to do instead of just sending her back to Daddy. An extended conversation with girlfriend Sedgwick where he actually describes some of his pain, anger, and confusion - honestly - was also cut from the film. These are the only scenes that ring true and put a spotlight on pedophilia from both the perpetrator's and the victim's view.. and they were cut.
Cast-wise, we're ok considering all the handicaps they're up against. Bacon does a decent if flat job, considering the lousy direction, although he's sullen to the point of being a zombie for most of it. The attraction between him and Sedgwick is never clear - both are mostly unlikeable - and their steamy sex scenes almost make us feel like creepy voyeurs since we know they've been married forever - are they acting or is this what their sex is like? Is this their bedroom at home?
We are blessed again to have Mos Def in this one, who makes the most of the unfathomable parole officer and pulls it off expertly. Eve is barely recognizable and quite good as the lumberyard catty office chick with a Mary Kay connection, and her boss David Alan Grier saves a scene or two as well. Benjamin Bratt is confusing as the Latino brother-in-law who understands all the issues and problems in his life, but is shocked and surprised whenever any of them are mentioned.
Bacon is credited as co-executive producer so I guess we can be grateful the whole mess wasn't messier: he probably saved quite a few scenes from what might have been even worse. It might have all been left up to producer Lee Daniels who, in another DVD extra, gives an interview worthy of a top comedian. He's like an SNL parody of a movie producer - for instance, he says that after Monster's Ball, "the world was my oysture" and then goes on to whine about not being able to get anyone to talk to him about this one. He talks in cliches, we're just waiting for him to say "let's do lunch." He announces proudly that none of the actors got paid, and says he tried to talk Kevin Bacon out of being in this movie "because he's such a good actor." Huh?
Perhaps much is explained about this lackluster movie in Daniels' interview. He refers to Nicole Kassell, the film's director and co-writer, as "little Nicki Kassell"; he refers to co-executive producer and funder Marvet Britto as "a little angel"; and he calls The Woodsman itself "this little film". Sadly, that's just what this little man has given us here: a very little film, that should have been, that could have been, a giant.
