Todd Field is known in many circles of film fans perhaps best as the actor who portrayed Nick Nightingale in Eyes Wide Shut. In many ways I realise how absurd a statement that is to say. However beyond his limited acting work, Field has also written and directed two sterling films, with his upcoming Tar coming soon and already a critical darling, I felt it was time to return to have a look at both of these films; the deeply dark and brilliantly conceived pairing of In the Bedroom and Little Children.

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In the Bedroom (2001)

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Field’s directorial debut was with this harrowing human drama, co-written with Robert Festinger, from the short story Killings written by Andre Dubus, whom the film is dedicated to. What the film begins as is most certainly not how it ends and so I shall keep plot descriptions to a minimum as with limited knowledge I found the brutal shift this film takes around the half hour mark to be something most unsettling and effecting, and supremely shocking. How we begin our tale however is just as easy to invest in and just as narratively enticing. The simple dramatic family tale of a New England couple, one a doctor, one a teacher, coming to terms with their college-aged son currently being involved in a relationship with a single mother older than him by a margin and with her own child and tragically related to the story, a violent and abusive ex-husband. Now as already mentioned the film takes a whole separate detour at the 30 minute mark into a drama of intense emotion, with the subtextual struggles of the first segment now seemingly irrelevant with the horrid magnitude of what they must now contend with. It is by its conclusion as aforementioned a tale intensely far removed from where it began. However all throughout Field keeps a sensitivity, a grit and a very human realism, and a methodical nature to not only his film-making, but also with the very actions of his characters. The film is somber, quiet and its moments of intensity are infrequent and all the more affecting for it. Field’s handle on his writing and directing is sublime and incredibly deft to say it was his first directorial effort. It's a fashion of sincerely emotional film-making without blending into any resemblance of melo-drama that make this a truly touching and wonderful film, if not the most uplifting. Of course Field’s capability as a director impacts and enlightens a series of indelible performances, which adapt and hurtle into new heights and lows as their characters tackle the vast terrains of emotion that they must traverse in this torridly emotional affair. Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek are the integral couple at the core of the film and so naturally it is their performances that stand out, with a core with the both of them of struggle and fear as they come to terms and battle with the inconceivable emotions and realities that have forced their ways into their lives. Wilkinson is sublimely soft in this film and the middle montage sequence chronicling the immediate aftermath of the shocking centre event, with Field frequently showing a silent exchange between the couple before fading to black in a pained rhythm of grief, only bettered endlessly by both Wilkinson and Spacek’s fragility. Marisa Tomei and William Mapother too are terrific in slightly more complex figures who on the surface perhaps have more performative scenes to deliver. Of course the crux of the film is the complexities of what emotions we let come to the surface and what we can’t face and what we keep down, and who approaches what emotion in different ways, this is ultimately what the film reveals itself to be about. A sublime and thoughtful film, with a languid and pained nature that so wholly tears one apart, you can’t really believe to what extent Field is working in a debut situation.

Little Children (2006)

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Then there is the case of Little Children which by all accounts is a more interesting film and yet is a far more complex one, not in the sense of narratives or plotting or anything like that. Rather a more complex beast when it comes to tone, content and in a word; aim. What is the purpose of this divisive and elusive piece. Is it the drama it labels itself to be? If so, at times it veers seemingly with intention into melodrama. Is it a black comedy? If so the moments of humour are very disparate when one looks at the overall arc of the tale, nor is the film actually too funny. Or is the film instead something instead beyond both simple classifications I have just considered. The question is answered only by the film itself, another matter is whether or not I think the film is completely successful. This is a piece not unlike a Desperate Housewives even, where the tropes of soap opera and the overdone nature of films about the darkness of suburbia are taken to intensely dark extremes, all in a pseudo satirical fashion to deconstruct the lives of a handful of interesting characters. Field as a film-maker is delving once more into the dark heart of humanity with a brutal realism as he did with In the Bedroom, this time however interspersed with a melancholic bleakness and a sense of absurdity in regards to convolution that makes this as a film instantly more entertaining and certainly funnier. Now it’s not as if grief and depression and adultery and paedophilia are either easy topics to consider or present, but the deftness to which Field handles both across two films of such vastly different tones is to me what makes him such an intriguing film-maker.  Field is writing here with Tom Perrotta, who wrote the novel of the same name the film is based upon (as well as the brilliant novel Election, which in turn spurned one of my all time favourite flicks; Tracey. And yes the film too). Perrotta as a writer loves to relish in exploring these dark undertones without the simple brush of other film-makers. Perrotta is the catalyst that sends this film to new dark depths of both humour and horror I feel. For me the whole film is on knife’s edge of intentionality all spurred and solidified by a narration that at first can take an audience member completely out of what they are seeing, before then (again not unlike those Desperate Housewives I mentioned earlier) one adjusts to the wryness and the winking of what the narration is allowing. It is allowing an almost voyeuristic and naturist angle to the proceedings. Commentary varies from the headiest of themes and the most prose-like of dialogue to the simplest of observations about the most mundane of things. It’s taking the intense over-exploration of suburban life to the most heightened and humorous of extremes, to such an extent even that we almost begin to focus on the wrong things. The commentary is so intentionally pretentious, no matter the genuine quality and effortlessness of Field and Perrotta’s writing, that we fail to notice at times the bizarre things our lead characters are doing. I think the most shining example of intentionality is the casting of Will Lyman as this uncredited narrator, who beyond his rich voice immediately adds a sense of knowingness to the proceedings. This is the man who narrated such epic documentaries and stock narrator jobs, now turning his luscious voice to the average goings on of the everyday suburban individual. Pair this with the fact that frequently the most intriguing aspect of the story and the most apt for narration, that of the introduction of an Oscar Nominated Jackie Earl Haley as a sex offender into the mix of this little town, often gets little to no commentary. This all comes together into a mix of uneasiness that ripens in enjoyment on every re-watch, perhaps this is down to above all else the fact that there is no comprehension of what this beast is on a first watch.

-       - Thomas Carruthers