In the Bedroom

Matt Fowler is a doctor in a coastal Maine town, married to Ruth, who teaches choir. Their son Frank, back for the summer, is drawn to Natalie, an older woman not yet free of a violent, separated husband. Todd Field lets the ordinary hold the screen: lobster traps, a card game, a kitchen at night. When a sudden act of violence takes the son, the marriage is left to absorb what the courts will not settle.

Adapting Andre Dubus's story Killings in his first feature as director, Field drew wide notice for what he refused to underline. Reviewers singled out the long domestic silences and the withheld feeling, and the performances of Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek, who let composure crack only in private.

For the consulting room, the film shows mourning that two people cannot speak to each other, the quiet trade of blame across a kitchen table, and the way grief in a settled marriage can harden into a wish for retribution rather than repair.