Review
THE WOODSMAN
Starring Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick and Mos Def
Written and directed by Nicole Kassell
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A wolf in sheep’s clothing – Bacon manages lessons in empathy
Let’s set the scene: a tropical beach, white sand, hot sun, some palm trees and one Hollywood superstar, Kevin Bacon. No it’s not Footloose meets Cast Away but the story behind one of the most controversial screenplays of 2004. It’s the tale of how Bacon came to play the role of producer and lead in his latest film, The Woodsman, a story that looks inside the mind of a pedophile released from prison.
Following the screening of The Woodsman at the London Film Festival, Bacon fondly recalled the day a real estate agent strolled up to him on the beach to ask him to read a contentious screenplay. Bacon skeptically obliged.
The script was by an unknown writer, Nicole Kassell, and the subject matter was disturbing: a pedophile, Walter, rejoins the world after 12 years in prison and attempts to start a new life. But the script didn’t merely observe or ridicule the pedophile – instead it walked alongside him. It laid naked a man with a sickness and thus defied modern cinematic convention as it looked for the humanity inside a monster. It asked the audience to see Walter for all that he was, not just what he wasn’t.
As Bacon recalls, once he decided to take on the film, his biggest concern was not the potential black mark on his career, but whether watching the film would be as powerful an experience as reading the script. Bacon wondered if the film had the capability to capture the script’s tormented honesty to reveal the sombre compassion that lay within it. It was a risky undertaking because, for the film to work, the audience would have to do the near impossible – empathize with a pedophile.
Walter is stretched between two worlds: one is filled with insistent, disturbed desires that pull him towards places children play and the other world is drenched in a self-disgust that denounces all he is. Bacon chisels out Walter as a timidly dark, self-absorbed and fragile man unsure of his words and emotions as he interacts with others. The supporting performances are also powerful, notably Mos Def as the venom-spitting Sgt. Lucas. Def represents the world’s hatred and disgust for the big bad wolf inside Walter. Kyra Sedgwick as Vickie, Walter’s love interest, adds an angle of intimacy and understanding to the film’s softly spoken narration.
Critics will likely praise Bacon for the brilliance of his delivery of such a risky role, but the film’s greatest achievement is its challenge to the studios and the modern day viewer.
Kassell’s first work asks audiences to move beyond the
pigeon-hole of popular cinema, where over-simplified, preconceived stereotypes dictate what we watch. Her work confronts the audience with intriguing questions: can we set aside our intolerances when faced with characterizations of an extreme nature? Or, in other words, is it possible to find humanity and dignity inside the mind of a pedophile?
As a challenge to the studios, Kassell’s film also pays homage to filmmaking of the ’60s and ’70s when films took a genuine look at life. It shows reverence to an era where viewer’s concepts of stereotypes were for the first time truly challenged on the big screen. Abbas Kiarostami once wrote that in this generation of blockbuster cinema no one looks at anything except the technical manuals. If The Woodsman can find viewers willing to empathize, this independent film could potentially help rewrite more than just our own stereotypes. |
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