Reservation Road

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Jennifer Connelly, Mark Ruffalo, Antoni Corone, Mira Sorvino and Gary Kohn

Written by: John Burnham Schwartz

Directed by: Terry George

Distributor: Focus Features

Rated: R

Mark Ruffalo in Reservation Road

Director Terry George (Hotel Rwanda) explores the weight of chance connections in Reservation Road. Mark Ruffalo plays Dwight Arno, a divorce lawyer who strikes a young boy while driving his son home. Concerned about fragile visitation rights, he does not stop for the accident. The child dies, shattering the emotional stability his parents Ethan (Joaquin Phoenix) and Grace (Jennifer Connelly). As the story becomes a major news item, Ethan and Grace struggle with the remote chance of finding the driver, while Dwight is caught between his guilt and his fear of losing contact with his own son if he turns himself in and goes to prison.

The story moves slowly, capturing the full emotional reality of the situation. Ruffalo and Phoenix are dynamic as opposing emotional forces that only occasionally and explosively come into contact, although their roles lack balance; Dwight grapples with his internal conflict while Ethan becomes outwardly bitter, angry and vengeful throughout the film. Connelly is a stunning actress who rarely gets a chance to explore her full potential onscreen, and this film doesn’t provide her with much of a challenge, her performance here shows satisfying emotional strength.

It’s a movie about families, so there are kids in the film. It would have been all too easy to let adults carry the story, but Terry George has captured some pretty impressive performances here from his younger actors and avoids capitalizing on their cuteness. Thirteen-year-old Eddie Alderson walks an intricate tightrope as Dwight’s son Lucas, balancing innocence and adulthood as a loveable child and an empathetic but manipulative party to the crime. Appearing in her twelfth feature film, nine-year-old Elle Fanning (Babel, Because of Winn-Dixie) is subdued as the little girl who has lost her brother in the accident. Her sadness at his loss seems as genuine as her strength.

Reservation Road is a film about the tenuous threads of causality that hold society together. In almost every circumstance, this is a tastefully done, thoughtful exploration into the nature of human connection, and how it can be both tender and brutal. VS