In The Bedroom is an astonishingly assured debut by director Todd Field, a pitch-perfect harmonizing of character, story, pacing and visual detail.
Lead actors Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek deliver career-topping performances, and Marisa Tomei and the rest of the supporting cast are similarly impressive. The Camden, Maine setting is evoked much more effectively by Field's camera than by his actors' somewhat variable Maine accents, but otherwise the cast members fully inhabit their well-written characters. Wilkinson's performance as husband and father Matt Fowler is the movie's gentle but grim heart. Like Nick Nolte in the equally dour New England story Affliction, Wilkinson is consistently compelling, but in a more understated, generous way that brings out the best from all his fellow actors.
A slow, wrenching depiction of family grief, In The Bedroom is nonetheless invigorating due to its harrowing honesty and thoughtfulness. Adapted from a short story by Andre Dubus, the movie eventually includes some jolts of violence that seem somewhat more familiar than its careful depiction of its characters' internal struggles. But the genius of In The Bedroom is in its small details--from the lobster lectures that give the film its name to the whirling bridgeman to the faintly yellowed pits of Matt's outdoor workshirt or the sweetly sad candy bars that appear at a sour time.