MOVIES : The Woodsman
This was originally a play (given away in the titles by 'based on the play by...'). It is about a paedophile who has just finished his sentence and is trying desperately to become 'normal'.
That's about it really, though that makes me sound like I didn't like it, I did, but there isn't much more to the story than that.
I think that all the actors did a marvelous job, made easier by a great script that fleshed most people out very nicely (except maybe the secretary and the _other_ paedophile). The story moves the sympathising from character to character to character, making you think about all the different implications of this particular act and how many lives it destroys.
Possibly my biggest criticism is that you never really dislike the main character. When he is about to reoffend I was not dispising him, or watching horrified as an innocent child was about to become a victim, instead I was anxious that he doesn't do it for his own spiritual wellbeing.
This is because, as can be guessed by my 1 sentence synopsis above, the script follows the journey of the Woodsman as he tries to attone/heal himself. It can use this 'cart' as a method to look at the issue from many angles, but it can't really have the audience hate the main character, even though he's done a horrendous thing
(In fact, and maybe this is an american movie thing, they definitely try in some places to reduce the abhorence of his particular act - 'Oh I did some bad stuff, but the girls always said yes' and so on)
I liked it though, and listening to people leaving afterwards it did acheive it's goal; getting people talking intelligently about the subject instead of just mouthing off.
And Kevin Bacon really hated himself.
That's about it really, though that makes me sound like I didn't like it, I did, but there isn't much more to the story than that.
I think that all the actors did a marvelous job, made easier by a great script that fleshed most people out very nicely (except maybe the secretary and the _other_ paedophile). The story moves the sympathising from character to character to character, making you think about all the different implications of this particular act and how many lives it destroys.
Possibly my biggest criticism is that you never really dislike the main character. When he is about to reoffend I was not dispising him, or watching horrified as an innocent child was about to become a victim, instead I was anxious that he doesn't do it for his own spiritual wellbeing.
This is because, as can be guessed by my 1 sentence synopsis above, the script follows the journey of the Woodsman as he tries to attone/heal himself. It can use this 'cart' as a method to look at the issue from many angles, but it can't really have the audience hate the main character, even though he's done a horrendous thing
(In fact, and maybe this is an american movie thing, they definitely try in some places to reduce the abhorence of his particular act - 'Oh I did some bad stuff, but the girls always said yes' and so on)
I liked it though, and listening to people leaving afterwards it did acheive it's goal; getting people talking intelligently about the subject instead of just mouthing off.
And Kevin Bacon really hated himself.
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