Review of Reservation Road (2007) by Dawdlingpoet — 25 Nov 2021

This is a drama thriller film which covers themes including accidents, deception and pursuit of justice. It has quite a sinister feel to it thanks to the unsettling, spooky incidental music and the various characters are shown trying to decide how to move on from the initial event. It is a hard watch at times, with the affected family clearly being profoundly hurt and struggling to deal with what has taken place. I found myself feeling very sorry for the affected characters, given the situation, its something that I wouldn't wish anyone to go through, involving loss (I'm trying not to give too much away but its very difficult to review this kind of film without giving any little hints of aspects of the plot). I found myself siding or otherwise agreeing with what Ethan (one of the main characters) said - his frustrations and concerns with the legal system and so on. I felt it was more of a psychological drama than anything else, with the film making me wonder what it might be like to be in certain peoples shoes and wondering why people did what they did. As I say, I wouldn't like to go in to too much detail but I felt there was definitely a moral aspect to it and it was relatively thought provoking due to this.

Cast wise, Joaquin Phoenix plays Ethan Learner - he gives an admirably emotional performance, playing his role well. He looked the part of a regular joe, a local businessman affected by a bad situation. Meanwhile, Mira Sorvino plays Ruth Wheldon, Jennifer Connelly plays Grace Learner and Mark Ruffalo plays Dwight Arno, people who were also affected, but in a different way, by what happened. Other cast members include Antoni Corone as Sergeant Burke and Sean Curley as Josh.

The plot, I felt, seemed reasonably unpredictable, in a good way, as I wasn't sure quite how things would pan out but I liked that. Suffice to say, it had me second guessing things for a fair while. Some of the scenes had a real feeling of vulnerability about them, in a sense that we (i.e. the viewer) felt that something sudden may be about to happen but what with the low light etc., we couldn't be sure what may or may not happen. It is relatively unsettling - I wouldn't say its a scary film as such but it is reasonably tense.

Content wise, the film contains one or two instances of violence (if but brief) and very volatile situations, in which quite violent acts may take place. There are a few instances of strong language and generally the main themes of the film are somewhat dark and thus could be somewhat frightening to some people but otherwise there isn't a great deal in the way of graphic content likely to greatly upset or offend people. The film has been given a 15 rating in the UK, which I was a little surprised about, as I'd have thought it would possibly be ok with the slightly lower 12 rating but thats the official classification in any case.

The plot is quite clever in a sense and I'd go so far as to say that its quite refreshing to see how the story develops with the information the viewer has from the get-go, as traditionally we wouldn't know so much. It puts a new spin on things. It isn't in any way an extraordinary film with amazing big budget effects or anything like that, in fact it looked, visually, more like a cheap made-for-TV-film, if anything but as a character development focussed film, it does well.

Yes, I think I would recommend it - as I say, it isn't especially amazing on the visual effects side of things but it features decent performances and is quite thought provoking, plus it is quite sinister, certainly at the start.