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A History of Violence
Who needs another remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers? David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence makes the same point as every previous version of that story already has, in a refreshing take filled with dread and, more importantly, maddening suspicion. It suggests, as the many Body Snatchers movies did (three versions and counting), that it is possible to wake up one morning and realize that the person in the bed next to you, who you have been married to for twenty years, is not the same person who you went to bed with the night before. They have the same face, the same characteristics, even the same personality. Nevertheless, something in the corner of their eyes—some deep, impenetrable secret—alludes you, and your gut instinct tells you that something is not right, not right at all. Has there ever been a scenario more horrifying? The respective difference between the sci-fi premise and Cronenberg’s film is in a secret that is new and has seemingly replaced your true loved one vs. a secret that has always been there within your spouse, always lingering in the darkness of his soul, and has only now been pushed up to the surface. And even still, the question mark remains: Is this fear justified, or is it your own paranoia? Is there really something different about your husband/wife, or is it really yourself who’s going crazy? Is it possible to share your life with someone for so long and never really know who they are? The film concerns a family man and local greasy spoon-owner named Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) who is forced to attack and kill two drifting criminals when they hold up his restaurant and threaten to shoot everyone in it. He is paraded as a local hero by the community and the media, though he prefers to keep his profile low and stay quietly at home with his wife Edie (Maria Bello) and two children ( Ashton Holmes and Heidi Hayes). Nevertheless, Tom’s actions become a magnet for controversy and fame, which includes the attention of a mob boss in Philadelphia (William Hurt) and his right-hand man (Ed Harris), who seem to believe that Tom is not only more than he seems, but a figure from their past who has eluded them for twenty years. Tom insists that they have the wrong man; he has a strong ally in the local sheriff (Peter MacNeill), but Edie, who never suspected that her husband was capable of such precise, calculated violence, allows the seeds of doubt to enter into her mind, and she begins to suspect, despite Tom’s insistence to the contrary, that there is more to her husband than she could have ever possibly known. Conenberg, then, plays here with variations of two well-known devices performed so expertly by Alfred Hitchcock in his various films: The “innocent man suspected” motifs in pictures like The 39 Steps and The Wrong Man, in which a good man must defend his honor against people who think he is guilty of an unspeakable crime; and the “How well do you really know your lover?” motifs in films like Strangers on a Train, Vertigo, and Notorious, in which spouses or lovers are forced to reevaluate their most trusted companions, suddenly troubled by the possibility that their partners have been wearing masks for as long as they have known each other, and terrified that when those masks are removed, the person underneath will become completely unrecognizable. Cronenberg “plays his audience like a piano” much as Hitchcock did; shifting between these two different devices in a way that we’re never sure what direction he is taking us. Unlike Hitchcock, Cronenberg presents a frantic urgency in his underlining message: That it probably doesn’t matter if Tom is honest or not; tendency to violence in inherent in us all, and the bottom line is, no matter how well we think we know someone, it doesn’t take much for our own brains to alter trust into suspicion. These two insights reveal more about our fickle nature than any obligatory plot twist probably could. Thus, I won’t reveal what kind of history, if any, that Tom has with violence; other reviews have given away crucial plot points, but I would rather keep those twists to myself in a hope that you haven’t heard them already. The film is much better approached cold. I will say that A History of Violence begins like a Frank Capra everyman-picture and ends like—well, like a David Cronenberg picture, and the film finds its raw, unrelenting power in the passages of transition between these two extremes. Cronenberg consistently finds the right tone throughout—first in a portrait of an ideal family in small, Lake Wobegon-like town in Indiana, and then in a dark, disturbing tale of suspicion and distrust, and finally, after everything finally comes to a head, a picture of desperation and torment, in which the characters must stare at each other, their stable worlds shattered forever, and wonder, “What now?” Cronenberg doesn’t provide the answer, because no answer would suffice; we instead linger on the question, which will probably exist in the family as long as they choose to remain a collective unit. In the meantime, A History of Violence showcases some of the best acting and dialogue of the year, as the various characters weave their way through suspicion, anger, and emotional repression. Viggo Mortensen reveals depths as an actor that were only hinted upon in his stint in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. We’re never sure what is going on in his head—this is essential—but we suspect that he is quietly resolved to his fate, which is the loss of his family’s trust and an unwanted infamy. He is either an innocent man who is bewildered to near silence as his world collapses around him or a tormented ex-mobster who has tried to escape his past and is now forced to confront it again, and either possibility spells doom for his shy, timid nature. Maria Bello, as his wife Edie, has the difficult task of deciphering between these two possibilities; she loves her husband, but how can she be certain that she really knows him? There is a powerful moment in which her suspicions reach a boiling point, and she and Tom confront them by making violent love on a staircase. This is a careful scene that is never gratuitous—rare is the sex scene that focuses primarily on the woman and not the man—and it creates a dilemma in Edie just as profound as Tom’s own possible secrets. If Edie really believes that Tom is an ex-mobster, and if this revelation brings about a moment of such unparalleled passion between them, then what does this tell us about her? Who does she really prefer—the reluctant hero or the sinister shadow? This sequence reveals as many shaded undertones in Edie as it does in Tom. The point of the scene is that even those who we know the best are rendered strangers when our closets force themselves open. The best acting, however, belongs to William Hurt, whose brief, third-act appearance as a bitter mobster might be the best performance of the year. The scene between him and Tom, in which they finally confront one another in an attempt to clear up the truth, is an absolute revelation, mainly because of Hurt’s mesmerizing performance as a dark, twisted man who has passed the brink of madness years ago. There are few actors better than William Hurt working today, no small thanks to his uncanny ability to be in the constant state of reinventing himself with fresh, offbeat characters. He has never been as absolutely chilling as he is in A History of Violence; his crime boss is a man who cloaks his insanity as successfully as Tom suppresses his seeming natural tendency to extreme violence, and when the two men finally meet and expose each other’s greatest vulnerabilities, the result is one of the best acted scenes that I have seen in a long, long time. To say much more would force me to reveal plot twists that I refuse to give away, but if I had to put my money on a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the Oscars, Hurt would most certainly be at the top of the list. A word must also be said about the final scene, which I won’t describe so much as I will warn you about. I consider it an addition to a fascinating trend that I’ve noticed in other pictures this year: The abrupt ending that slams the film into a shocking, jolting halt instead of providing an easy, satisfying resolution. A similar approach to a denouement, or lack thereof, has appeared specifically in two other films that are also likely to make my best of the year list: George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead and Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers, which, along with A History of Violence, feature conclusions that produce more questions than answers, leaving our mouths gaping and almost outraged. All three films seem to be pointing to the inevitable conclusion that there are some obsessions, fueled by intense restlessness, that must come to a halt lest we find ourselves trapped in an endless, repetitive cycle that threatens to reduce our lives to monotony, suspicion, and selfishness. The obsessions do not stop because our restlessness has stopped, but seemingly because our restlessness has backed us into a hole from which we cannot escape. The films feature different kinds of obsession and suspicion, but they all make the same case that to halt our obsessions makes little sense to the outside looking in, but after careful consideration, it remains the only possible, sane solution. This might be chasing a rabbit, but in times such as this, perhaps Romero, Jarmusch, and Cronenberg are on to something: Human nature is a complex, endless labyrinth, and perhaps the best way to survive it is not to try to work our way through it, but to instead simply accept our time in the maze. Cast: A New Line Cinema Production. Directed by David Cronenberg. Written by Josh Olson, from the graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke. Rated R, for graphic violence, language, and two sex scenes. Running time: 96minutes. Original United States theatrical release date: September 23, 2005. Questions? Comments? E-mail me: danel_the_tinman@hotmail.com |
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