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Written by Steven Fechter; directed by Nicole Kassell; starring Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick. Released to DVD on April 12, 2005.  When Hilary Swank won her first Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Teena Brandon in Boys Don’t Cry, there were numerous stories circulating in the mainstream media trumpeting Swank’s rags-to-riches story; no one else who acted in The Next Karate Kid or Cries Unheard: The Donna Yalich Story has been nominated for any kind of Academy Awards. To say that Swank came from nowhere to nab the film world’s most coveted honor is almost an understatement. In the three years prior to Boys Don’t Cry, Swank had spent her time acting in three made-for-TV movies and playing Steve Sanders’ squeeze for a season on Beverly Hills 90210. While Swank was posited onto the cover of all the entertainment magazines and made the rounds on the late night talk show circuit as Hollywood’s latest golden child, true insiders wondered whether she had any kind of staying power. Normally, winning an Academy Award affords its recipient of a certain career stability, but Swank’s case reminded studio executives more of Linda Hunt’s nomination and subsequent win for her gimmicky performance in 1982’s The Year of Living Dangerously than of any Meryl Streep’s nominations and wins. Because it’s near impossible to judge a person’s acting ability based upon their performance in an incredibly gimmicky role. Gimmickry itself seems to have found a home in professional sports, the Veeck family has made a name for itself based entirely upon this concept, and on TV to a degree, as the high ratings of Fox’s wife swapping shows would suggest, but it has yet to find a home in the film world. The reason for this stems around the fact that Hollywood has its most dynamic box office successes with films whose characters appear real. It may demonstrate an innate acting ability to turn in a performance as a man who thinks he’s a penguin, but the chances are nobody’s going to be paying money to see it. As a result of this, the biggest and most popular actors in Hollywood are those who come across as everyday people… good-looking, everyday people. The only thing that audiences seem to dislike more than critically praised gimmickry (like Boys Don’t Cry) is gimmickry that doesn’t work. Which brings us to director Nicole Kassell’s The Woodsman. Adapted from Steven Fechter’s play of the same name, The Woodsman is a rather plotless wonder about a pedophile, Walter Rossworth (Kevin Bacon), who is released from prison and haphazardly attempts to rejoin society. There are a multitude of problems with The Woodsman on just about every filmic level possible. There are huge, gaping sinkholes in the plot–were we really supposed to believe that Rossworth’s parole officer or state laws would allow a convicted pedophile to move into an apartment across the street from an elementary school?–Kassell’s style of direction is plodding and so simple it makes Patty Jenkins’ approach to Monster seem detailed and flashy, the pacing of the project is deathly slow and the majority of the characters are surprisingly one dimensional.  The Woodsman is populated with talented and professional actors who deliver almost uniformly good performances. Bacon is very good in the lead bringing a much-needed sense of humanity to Rossworth and David Alan Grier and rapper Eve give a subtle dramatic elegance to the supporting cast, a change of pace for both to be sure. However, even with the presence of these fine acting performances, The Woodsman suffers mightily from Kassell’s very limited style of direction. One of the most important aspects a director can bring to a given project is energy, which is created by a combination of the film’s atmosphere and style. Not every movie has to look like a music video or a Michael Bay film, but it is a project’s unique energy that ultimately engages the audience. There are a number of tricks that a director can use to heighten his film’s energy when his script doesn’t provide much of boost: these include the use of quick cuts, a spla.html>spla.html>spla.html>spla.html>splashy color scheme, long tracking shots, interesting camera movement and sets that have character and personality. Bay often spends more timing utilizing these energy-inflating conventions than working to create a better plot, which is why he is so reviled amongst most film critics, and Kassell happily and defiantly employs zero of these in The Woodsman. Midway through Kassell’s film, the audience is presented with a nearly two minute, uncut, close-up of Bacon’s face as he carries on a conversation with his therapist, who is off-screen during the exchange. The effect of this shot is draining. Sapping away my strength as a viewer, I began looking around the screening room, completely taken out of the moment because of how long the dreary shot of Bacon played on. When Kassell cut away to a new angle, I wasn’t thinking about Rossworth’s dilemma, the nature of pedophilia or even what he’d been talking about, I was thinking about whether I had ever looked at something unfettered, unblinkingly and without ever glancing away for two straight minutes. Nearly a set of competing monologues captured on film, The Woodsman is an uninteresting and very exhausting actor’s showcase. It’s possible that Kassell has some filmmaking talent, however, much like judging Swank upon her performance in Boys Don’t Cry, Hollywood will have to wait and see what Kassell does next to determine this.
chris neumer yes, it's true: To date, there is no scientific explanation for why people become (or are) pedophiles. |
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