Reservation Road Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
To find the truth, you have to find who's hiding it.
To find the truth you have to find who's hiding it.
On a warm September evening, college professor Ethan Learner, his wife Grace, and their daughter Emma are attending a recital. Their 10-year-old son Josh is playing cello — beautifully, as usual. His younger sister looks up to him, and his parents are proud of their son. On the way home, they all stop at a gas station on Reservation Road. There, in one terrible instant, he is taken from them forever. On a warm September evening, law associate Dwight Arno and his 11-year-old son Lucas are attending a baseball game. Their favorite team, the Red Sox, is playing - and, hopefully, heading for the World Series. Dwight cherishes his time spent with Lucas. Driving his son back to his ex-wife, Lucas' mother Ruth Wheldon, Dwight heads towards his fateful encounter at Reservation Road. The accident happens so fast that Lucas is all but unaware, while Ethan — the only witness — is all too aware, as a panicked Dwight speeds away. The police are called, and an investigation begins. Haunted by the tragedy, both fathers react in unexpected ways, as do Grace and Emma. As a reckoning looms, the two fathers are forced to make the hardest choices of their lives.
| Joaquin Phoenix | Ethan Learner |
| Elle Fanning | Emma Learner |
| Jennifer Connelly | Grace Learner |
| Mark Ruffalo | Dwight Arno |
| Samuel Ryan Finn | Cello Player |
| Eddie Alderson | Lucas Arno |
| Sean Curley | Josh Learner |
| Susan Powell | Elegant Parent |
| Cordell Clyde | Jimmy McBride |
| Antoni Corone | Sergeant Burke |
| Kevin Herbst | Driving Trooper |
| Mira Sorvino | Ruth Wheldon |
| Gary Kohn | Norris Wheldon |
| John Slattery | Steve |
| Nora Ferrari | Nora |
| Terry George |
7.30 out of 10 (372 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Two fathers
posted on 22 Aug 2009"Reservation Road" is a difficult movie to sit through. The tragic death of a boy is something no one expects. It's a parents' nightmare to go through the loss of a child. If that death is caused by a hit and run driver, is even worse. Unfortunately, in most cases, guilt and shame play highly on the mind of the perpetrator. While the decent thing to do is to stop and go back to the scene of the crime, most people will run out of fear of facing their own responsibility.Ethan Learner and Dwight Arno are two men that love their children. In the case of Dwight, a divorce has limited the way he can share time with his son Lucas. Ethan suffers a tremendous blow when Josh, who has strayed from the parking area to liberate fireflies, is killed by what appears, by all indications, of the carelessness of a drunk driver, or some other person who decides to flee the scene of the crime. Both men go through hell in different ways. Dwight, suffers the guilt of his cowardly act, and Ethan, because after losing Josh, he can't stop planning to get his own justice when everything else fails him.This film was an adaptation of the novel by John Burnham Schwartz, we haven't read. It was adapted for the screen by the author and the director, Terry George, whose "Hotel Rwanda" made an impression on this viewer's mind. Mr. George makes a character study of the two fathers at a time of crisis.The ensemble cast does a good job. Mark Ruffalo comes out best as Dwight. Mr. Ruffalo clearly shows why he is one of the most versatile actors of his generation. Joaquin Phoenix, who plays Ethan, does justice to Josh's loving father. In a way, it's a shame Mr. Phoenix has decided to abandon his film career in order to pursue his music. Jennifer Connelly is Grace, the grieving mother of Josh, who sees in horror how she is losing her husband who is hellbent in avenging Josh's death. Mira Sorvino appears as Dwight's former wife, Ruth.Despite the uneasiness we felt watching this film, it is worth a look to see how an act of carelessness affects the lives of two men.
not "In the Bedroom" or "Mystic River", but approaching them
posted on 18 Aug 2009I didn't know what "Reservation Road" was about when I started watching it. Not knowing the plot makes the movie hit you more. After an unfortunate event, the two families involved (neither of whom knows who the other is) inadvertently become more and more intertwined. Each time that another link gets revealed, you know that you're getting closer and closer to something ugly.The characters, although not the best that I've seen in movies, were certainly worthwhile. Ethan Learner (Joaquin Phoenix) remains totally despondent about his son's death and the fact that the killer hasn't been caught. Ethan's wife Grace (Jennifer Connelly) wants to move on with her life and finds it regrettable that Ethan obsesses on one topic. Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo), who caused the accident, spends most of the movie bothered by his actions and wanting to right the wrongs, but worried about what might result. At times, each of the characters come across as somewhat repulsive, but you still understand why they behave as they do.Some people might liken this movie to "In the Bedroom" and "Mystic River". "Reservation Road" certainly deals with similar themes, although I wouldn't actually put it in the same league as those other two. This movie seems a little bit more sensationalistic, and as though it's trying to do the same as the other two. But overall, I thought that it's a good movie, and I would recommend it. Also starring Mira Sorvino and Elle Fanning.
Perfect movie
posted on 25 Jul 2009I can't possibly imagine how someone here can give this movie 1/10. Does that mean it's just as bad as I dunno, home alone 4 or something like that? Give me a break...For me this movie was a huge surprise, I can't say anything bad about it. The whole cast was unbelievable, mostly Jenniffer Connelly was amazing. She really deserves a nomination for best supporting actress at the Oscars. The whole movie makes you think a lot, you get to see both sides in a very human way, and you even feel a lot of symphaty for the "bad guy". Of course, you also understand the feelings of the victim, as he wants justice.This movie was very touching and thrilling, it's perfect.
Unremarkable
posted on 17 Jul 2009Story of what happens in the aftermath of a hit and run as the family of the boy killed looks for closure and the man who hit him tries to see if he can live with himself.Well acted and good looking, I was disappointed in that its very much by the numbers. To be certain there are a couple of twists in the story but mostly it speeds along to its appointed conclusion at a good pace. Its not bad but not really remarkable.Even the good performances can really make something out of this nothing. I'd wait for cable since odds are its going to end up being forgotten not long after you turn it off.(five out of ten)
painfully slow and ultradramatic
posted on 11 Jul 2009After a boy gets hit by a car near a gas station, the freaked out driver drives on to spend the rest of his days in bitter remorse. The boy's parents are of course devastated and struggle, each in their own way, to deal with their loss. Dad becomes obsessed with finding 'the killer' while mom finds a way to deal with life raising her young daughter. Will dad find out who hit his son?...the question is..do we still care after 30 minutes?2 hours of the most ridiculous melodrama with no end in sight which becomes progressingly worse after half way. A hit and run tale is a sad one but surely this doesn't justify bludgeoning the audience with overwrought drama scene after scene after scene. While there is practically no story progression to speak of and no development in the 2 dimensional characters, the leaden script makes every bit of acting feel completely overdone. Any sympathy for the characters? forget it, they are merely cardboard soap-personae who don't exist in the real world and who soon become highly annoying as such.Cringeworthy at best, this lackluster storytelling-void will be forgotten soon and rightfully so.Do yourself a favor and see something else.1/10
A sad dud ...
posted on 17 Jun 2009The story: A child dies in a hit-and-run car accident in the beginning of the movie, and the rest of the movie drags out the pursuit and sought-after justice for the killer.Highly touted as a story with twists, the only twist is that the killer (Ruffalo) ends up becoming the victim's family's lawyer assigned to solving the case.The story is akin to IN THE BEDROOM, which had a similar vigilante justice theme.The personal relationships are forced for lack of a sustaining storyline to carry the movie, and the ending is overwrought and ridiculous.A far better movie dealing with loss is MEN DON'T LEAVE.
Too neat for me but still entertaining
posted on 03 Jun 2009This flick was very Hollywood. Fine acting by all , including Mark Ruffalo, Joaquin Phoenix and Jennifer Connelly. I liked this movie and it meant well , exploring the psychology of the victims , particularly the dead boys dad , and his obsession with finding his sons hit and run suspect.This film, as well , explored the situation from , the suspects point of view. OK fair enough I get it and again I felt it was well done. Now here comes the BUT. Everything was neatly in a bow. In a metropolis that boasts in excess of over 12 million people or so... talking about Boston and its surrounding suburbs. The suspect just happens to live within a couple blocks, suspects son just happens to go to same school as victim of hit and run. For the cherries on top the victims family uses suspect as atty to find the killer and the victims family sibling takes piano lessons from suspects ex wife. Hope you guys wrote all this down. This is just too unrealistic for my taste. With all that in mind , I still enjoyed the movie.This was sensitive matter done well. It did offer many educational viewpoints of hit and run episodes and the actors were all people that I like and/or tolerate. Enjoy this movie for what it is and take the overly Hollywood script for what it is and nothing more.
Forgiveness road
posted on 20 May 2009You can argue about the "coincidences " in the screenplay :the choice of the lawyer,the piano teacher...And Ruffalo's family problems has become a cinema cliché.But all that remains is deeply moving :Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo give both extremely good performances,particularly the latter in his last scenes.The story is (unfortunatel) so common it could happen to anyone of us : we could be the hit and run or the victim's father.What happened to them could happen to us as well.What would we have done if we had been in Dwight's shoes? Would we have given ourselves up?It's not that simple.One can regret that the "intense" week Dwight spent with his son revolves around matches:is there nothing else in their life? Best moment:the little sister playing the piano so that her dear brother can hear it in Heaven:such a scene recalls Douglas Sirk Or Frank Borzage.Like this?try these...."La Stanza Del Figlio" Nanni Moretti "Que La Bête Meure" (The beast must die) Claude Chabrol
A Nutshell Review: Reservation Road
posted on 04 May 2009You wonder what goes through the minds of those involved in hit and run accidents. In that split second after impact, you are presented a choice, and your life will change, one way or the other. One probably has to consider whether to stop and render assistance, and in doing so owning up to the accident, but having a chance to save a life if the circumstances allow for it. Or to hope that nobody saw you did what you did, and bolt. Negligent drivers, either through drink driving, or being distracted while on the road, probably won't elicit much sympathy, especially so from the family of the victim, and in Reservation Road, powerful drama is weaved amongst the characters on both sides of the hit and run equation.Reservation Road refers to the scene of the crime, where the Learners - dad Ethan (Joaquin Phoenix), mom Grace (Jennifer Connelly) and daughter Emma (Elle Fanning) lose their son/brother in an accident, caused by a man in a baseball cap, driving an SUV. On this angle, we follow through the pain of the family who suffer a terrible loss. The dad Ethan slowly degenerates into an obsessive wreck, trying in vain to pursue the perpetrator who's out there, through his own dogged investigations when he realizes that the cops can only do what they can given extremely limited leads which yielded no progress. The mom Grace, while at first finding it hard to accept the truth - and in the initial days, the simplest of reasons to pin the guilt in, will resonate deeply - but we see how she draws strength in the hope of keeping the family spirits up. And the daughter finds ways to cope with the loss through channeling her energies into performance.On the other angle, Mark Ruffalo plays Dwight the lawyer, who's estranged from his wife Ruth (Mira Sorvino) and has visiting rights to their son. When the accident happens, in that split second he made the inevitable decision for self preservation, and while he may have momentarily escape from justice and the law, negative karma dictates that he will live his life being tormented by guilt from that point on, all this while trying to provide reason that he based his decision on being able to be free from jail, to continue seeing his son. Confession and owning up will see himself in the slammer, and probably losing everything. I thought this part of the story was the more interesting one. On one hand we judge that he's a coward, of not being a man in owning up to the wrong that he did. On the other, we also realize his pain and his fear - it takes a lot to own up, especially when it involves lives being taken away, and from people we remotely know, no thanks to six degrees of separation.Based on the novel by John Burnham Schwartz who also co-wrote the screenplay with director Terry George (Hotel Rwanda), some might wonder if the coming together of the key characters are a tad convenient. We have father to father in a lawyer-client position, and one mother being the teacher of the other's child. Putting them together will lead to the inevitable, but it is this unravelling of the truth, that keeps us engaged to a gripping ending. Scenes that will make you seethe with rage, and probably whisper a silent curse, will be those where opportunities for confession are presented, but each time spurned. As the saying goes, a lie begets a larger lie, and it will snowball before you realize that the lie becomes to difficult to cover up.Kudos go all round to the entire cast, save for Sorvino's role which is more cameo than supporting, mainly also because the tanglement of the complicated situation doesn't affect her character directly. Ruffalo put on a commendable performance as the man wrecked by guilt, and he fleshed his character with incredible nuances we usually associate when we are fearful, and guilty. You can feel pain through Joaquin's performance of the dad looking for justice, but finds himself being unsatisfied by the system of the law, and learns that sometimes the law and justice conflict each other, and offer the layman little or no protection, unlike those such as diplomats who have powers at their disposal. Jennifer Connelly of late plays nothing but pained wives/mothers/girlfriends (A Beautiful Mind, Hulk, Dark Water, Little Children), so there's nothing really new in her role her. But I would like to single out little Elle Fanning. While her role here is fairly simple, I thought she had exhibited much more screen presence and likability than her more illustrious sister Dakota, who has disappeared after her last outing in Charlotte's Web. Hopefully we get to see more of Elle taking on challenging kid/teen roles in time to come.Reservation Road is recommended for being a powerful drama with excellent an excellent cast. Usually movies like these will have the mothers bawling and the picture being a weepy drama, but here, the movie shifts its focus to the love of fathers toward their sons, and that makes it well worth a watch.
Reservation Road Movie Review
posted on 14 Apr 2009Human suffering is an interesting subject because of its relative ease in connecting with audiences and evoking emotions. Reservation Road succeeds in emphasizing the catastrophic events of a hit and run accident with astoundingly powerful performances from everyone in the cast. Where it fails is in its documentary approach at portraying the mental aftermath of a tragedy and the dearth of a plausibly satisfactory conclusion. As Reservation Road reluctantly concedes early on, when none of the characters win, neither does the audience.Ethan Learner (Joaquin Phoenix), his wife Grace (Jennifer Connelly) and their two young children Emma and Josh stop at a gas station on Reservation Road and have their lives unsuspectingly swept out from under them when Josh is killed by a hit-and-run driver. The driver, Dwight Arno (played by Mark Ruffalo), in shock and afraid of losing his own son, who he struggles to see despite strict court orders from a divorce, attempts to hide his damaged SUV and any signs of the crime. But with unnervingly unforeseen coincidences, Dwight is hired as a lawyer to investigate the crime, while his wife tutors little Emma. Wrought with guilt and the fear of judgment by his impressionable young son, Dwight weighs his options as his world crumbles around him. Meanwhile, Ethan, overcome with grief, seeks vigilante justice due to the ineffectiveness of local law enforcement.First and foremost, the acting is peerlessly superior to just about everything else so far this year. Undeniably Academy Award worthy performances pours forth from Jennifer Connelly, Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo. Each of these characters suffer in different ways, but their portrayals are so accurately riveting that every time they burst into tears, so do we. Few performances are able to elicit such striking emotion from its audience, but Reservation Road's cast does so with ease. Of course, its tragedy-rich plot line is an easy target for sympathy.Early on it is undeniably apparent that Dwight's flight from the hit-and-run accident was caused by a combination of fear and ignorance. But his continual suffering from his conscience eating away at him allows the audience to take pity, and we don't necessarily want him to die - especially because of his child. This leads to a problem for the audience: the antagonist is made to suffer, allowing for little satisfaction when his sins catch up to him. When every character loses, the audience often also loses out on a satisfactory resolution, in this case leading to a very abrupt finale. Reservation Road makes the mistake of creating very emotionally powerful pieces that overshadow the truncated conclusion and the film as a whole.While the end itself pales in comparison to the panic-inducing build, credit is due to the nail-bitingly suspenseful and complexly brilliant first two acts. Dwight is unable to completely hide from Ethan's vengeful suspicions due to increasingly unexpected twists. Connelly's tear-jerking anxiety and Emma's innocently naïve queries to her mother add a dash of lemon juice to the wound of death-related heartbreak.Reservation Road wastes no time careening right into the nerve-racking plot, and with powerhouse performances that won't be forgotten during awards season, it tells a woeful tale with countless layers of grief, anxiety and regret. While it may fail to thoroughly entertain with its "lose-lose" approach, it is a film that is not easily forgotten.- Mike Massie
Powerful and Heartbreaking Drama
posted on 10 Apr 2009In Wyndham Harbor, Connecticut, Professor Ethan Lerner (Joaquin Phoenix) is driving back home with his family after attending a recital where his ten-year-old cellist son Josh (Sean Curley) played. His wife Grace (Jennifer Connelly) asks Josh to let the fireflies he put in a jar go, otherwise they would die. When their daughter Emma (Elle Fanning) asks to go to the restroom, Ethan parks the car in a gas station on Reservation Road and Josh goes to the shoulder to release the fireflies. Meanwhile the divorced lawyer Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo) is driving his son Lucas (Eddie Alderson) back to his ex-wife Ruth (Mira Sorvino) home after watching a Red Sox baseball game. When his cell-phone rings, his eyes are simultaneously hit by the headlights of another car; and Dwight looses the control of his Ford Explorer, hits Josh and in panic he drives off. Josh dies and the disturbed Ethan becomes obsessed, trying to locate the hit-and-run driver, affecting his relationship with his family. When he feels that the police will not locate the killer, Ethan hires Dwight to help in the investigation and bring the driver to justice. The family man Dwight is divided between going to the police station and loose his son and live with an increasing remorse."Reservation Road" is a powerful and heartbreaking drama based on a fatal hit-and-run accident that destroys two families. Any driver may face a similar situation, and both characters deserve sympathy. Ethan looses his beloved son and destroys his marriage seeking revenge. Andy was raised with a traumatic relationship with his father and he wishes to spare his son from similar environment. However he knows that he would go to prison and lose the growing of his boy. Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Connelly and Elle Fanning have excellent dramatic performances; however, Joaquin Phoenix performs a character obsessed by death wish, almost deranged, and his character is quite unpleasant. In my opinion, Ethan should balance a little more his grieving with his need of revenge and be more empathic, connecting better with the audience. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil)? "Traídos Pelo Destino" ("Betrayed by the Destiny")
Good cast
posted on 19 Mar 2009(Minor spoiler ahead, marked within)Excellent performance by Mark Ruffalo with a very strong support by Jennifer Connelly. Young Elle Fanning does a very good job and again shows that she has a promising future in acting. I'm ashamed to say that I actually didn't recognize Joaquin Phoenix until I saw the end credits (and then I wondered which part he played!) - he did a decent job, but the rest of the cast was so strong that I felt his acting was lacking in comparison. I knew absolutely nothing about this movie before watching it, so I won't ruin it to you. I felt the movie had a combination of 3 themes: ** MINOR SPOILER AHEAD ** The first part was a tragedy, the second part was a thriller and the last part was a revenge. ** END OF MINOR SPOILER ** The last part felt too cinematic/exaggerated and I wish it was more realistic, like the other two parts. 6/10 Highly recommended.
Mixed Bag.
posted on 11 Mar 2009***/***** This film had the potential to be truly excellent. The performances by Phoenix and Ruffalo are Phenomenal, and you can almost feel all the guilt, melancholy, loss and suffering vicariously through them as they are besieged by these feelings. However, the screenplay had some very contrived occurrences and coincidences, that kind of took me out of the film and at times left me wondering if I had accidentally stumbled upon the Lifetime Network. Ruffalo's character accidentally hits a young child, then decides to flee the scene. For him and all involved, tumultuous times seem to say, "I have a surprise for you today." Definitely worth the time if you are a fan of either of the aforementioned actors. Added to this, the cinematography is tiptop, with drowned-out color schemes and the like personifying moods and such. In closing, I would have a little reservation recommending this, but overall, it is probably a road worth taking.
be prepared to be touched and saddened
posted on 07 Mar 2009This film is about a grieving family dealing with the loss of their son after a hit and run accident.The plot is very strong, It shows the driver's guilt and shame, the unrelenting pursuit of the father trying to find the driver, and a grieving mother who wants to move on. The powerful performances are remarkably touching, especially of Joaquin Phoenix and Jennifer Connelly. The added twist in the complicated relationship between Dwight and Ethan is engagingly presented, and adds more melancholy and tension to the whole film."Reservation Road" is a surprising gem. It is almost scary that a split second decision can have such profound impact on oneself and others. be prepared to be touched and saddened by "Reservation Road".
a tragic story, but more of a Hallmark channel film
posted on 09 Feb 2009This movie told a tragic tail, but it just wasn't good enough for a full feature film. I see this as more of a TV movie. Ethan and his wife have 2 wonderful kids. One evening, the family stops at a gas station and the boy gets out to release fireflies. He goes near some bushes along the road to do this. Dwight is taking his son back to his mom's and is blinded by headlights. He hits Ethan's son, Josh, but doesn't stop. Ethan wants to get revenge on the driver he sees as a murderer. After several days, Ethan seeks the help of a lawyer with the investigation and just happens to go to the firm Dwight works for and gets Dwight as the lawyer to help him. That is just to unbelievable. So Ethan talks with Dwight and doesn't recognize him, but one night he sees Dwight wearing a baseball cap and all of a sudden knows absolutely sure that Dwight was the driver that called his son. So much so, he gets a gun and plans revenge on Dwight. That just isn't believable to me. It ends kind of how you expected.FINAL VERDICT: A decent story, but it sort of loses touch with reality in the middle. Too many coincidences. If you like Lifetime movies, you will like this.
Coincidence Road
posted on 26 Jan 2009I see people writing about "twists" and stuff and I'm completely baffled as to why a series of ridiculous coincidences can be considered "twists." A movie about a man who does a hit and run, how he lives with what he did and how the father of the child lives with the loss of his son and the fact the hit and runner got away; that would be a pretty good movie.And that's how this starts. Then we're hit with a series of ridiculous coincidences that lead a predictable movie which makes it all a waste.Not only does the victim's family happen to end up living walking distance from the driver's home (as we find out later in the film), but of all the people the father hires to be his attorney to help out, it's the driver!! Now this is a pretty far fetched coincidence. But then, the father's remaining living child, his daughter, is taking piano lessons from the driver's ex-wife! If you have any questions as to whether the father will find out who hit his kid, you have never watched a movie before. Since everything is practically handed to him, only a buffoon couldn't crack this case (the cops of course don't crack it).And of course, the moral of the movie appears to be that ten years in prison for a hit-and-run is okay punishment, better than death.This movie was a waste of good talent by everyone.
A good film but not too satisfactory
posted on 10 Jan 2009Let's take these two horror films : Saw 3 and Hostel.Both movies share the same characteristic : they show extremely bloody torture scenes but they never produce impact on the spectator because there is not enough endorse on the screenplay,since there is not too much character development.So,that two films are only worried in showing torture scenes but they are not worried in producing an impact on the spectator.I think that kind of horror movies have a compatibility with dramas like Babel or Reservation Road : they are worried in showing human suffering but all that suffering does not produce impact on the spectator because there is not enough endorsement on the screenplay.So,I think these dramas are the "artistic" equivalent to that horror films.Reservation Road is a good film,I do not deny it,but it did not satisfy me too much because this movie is only worried on showing suffering without any endorsement or porpoise.Plus,everything in this movie looks depressing.I do not want a happy feeling on every movie I see but I think this film had an excessively depressing tone which made it a little bit tired.Now,for the positive sight,I have to mention the good elements from this movie.The performances are excellent and the ones who specially stand out are Mark Ruffalo and Joaquin Phoenix.These two actors take possession of their characters and they never seem to be acting.The ending was OK and,in spite of the depressing tone and some tired moments,in general,the movie did not bore me.I think I can recommend Reservation Road for the positive elements,specially the performances.But what I find difficult,is to recommend it with enthusiasm.
With guilt, there's nowhere to hide
posted on 21 Dec 2008The human conscience is a powerful thing. Couple it with a life altering mistake compounded by a momentary lapse in moral judgment and a person can find themselves gripped by a lifetime of guilt. Such is the case in the melancholy Reservation Road, which tells the story of two men whose lives are shattered in the blink of an eye, and the guilt and fear that grow from the festering wound it leaves.Joaquin Phoenix stars as Ethan Learner, a college professor who, while driving home with his wife Grace (Jennifer Connelly) and two young children Emma and Josh (Elle Fanning and Sean Curley), decide to make a stop at a gas station on Reservation Road. It's there that in one quick moment of tragedy Josh is accidentally hit and killed by an SUV driven by lawyer Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo), frantically rushing his son home to his ex-wife after a Red Sox game.Compounding the tragedy is Dwight's decision, rendered in a split second, to speed away from the scene, leaving Ethan with only a blurred fleeting glimpse and little else to aid the police with their investigation.In the days that follow, the inner torture that both sides face threatens to destroy the very fabric of their souls.Directed by Terry George (Hotel Rwanda) and based on the critically acclaimed novel by John Burnham Schwartz (who co-wrote the screenplay with George), the story adds a darker layer to the human tragedy when Ethan unwittingly opts to hire Dwight as his lawyer to help ensure the killer is prosecuted to the full extent of the law, should he be captured.Both Phoenix and Ruffalo turn in impressive performances as two men whose insides have been rendered asunder by the accident. Rufallo is particularly convincing in that even though his character has full access to the police investigation and knows that he will likely never be caught, he cannot escape the torment that what he did was wrong and must somehow be put right.There's no easy answers to be found along Reservation Road, only choices; the choice to forgive or to hate, to admit one's guilt or bury it, to live a life of eternal torment, or move on however difficult that may be. Life's all about choices, and Reservation Road is a choice not to be passed up.
Top Class Drama
posted on 29 Nov 2008This is an excruciatingly intense drama and engrossing as well.A happy couple suffer when one of their children is the victim of a "hit and run" and the film focuses both on the family of the victim and on the perpetrator too and what they do for closure or to assuage their "guilt" etc.All the actors give totally convincing performances. It takes a lot of skill and ability to play the roles required in a film of this type. And the movie is directed in a subdued yet wholly realistic manner.This picture had me enthralled throughout, so worthy of a 7 and a half, rounded up,hence:8/10.
Dark and Sad, but Well Acted
posted on 26 Aug 2009Were Joaquin, Mark, and Jennifer all amazing in their roles? YES. Was the subject matter unbelievably depressing? YES.I guess I should have expected that, given the plot circumstances – Mark Ruffalo's character kills Joaquin & Jennifer's son in a hit & run. It's obviously going to be a bit dark. I could have done with a touch of hope sprinkled somewhere in there. Every scene with Jennifer as the grieving mom is filled with so much pain that it's almost unwatchable. I think because the entire movie stays at a sad, low level that it can cause the audience to turn off their own feelings and stop feeling for the characters because there aren't the ups and downs. There isn't a breather or anything lighter in quality before the story plunges into darkness again. It's all dark, so the darkest moments lose their intensity because there is no juxtaposition of emotions.The best scenes were the ones between Joaquin and Mark, as Joaquin has no clue that Mark was the driver and Mark knows very well that Joaquin is the father. There's immense tension when these two people have to interact. Mark's character shows the audience the extreme pain of being on that side of the accident.