From the moment In The Bedroom opens to the moment it ends, it keeps a quiet yet haunting hold over you that brings both beauty and despair into the story it tells. It was one of the first motion pictures that actor-director Todd Field took on as a low-budget independent project that would earn five Oscar nominations, which is one of the rare times in history that an independent film can get so high an acclaim. Even though it lost to A Beautiful Mind that year – a more crowd-pleasing drama – In The Bedroom carries a unique style in regards to the realism it conveys of small town life that is about to be shaken up by shocking tragedy and flows with a hard-hitting and subtle mood that will be hard to forget.

The film begins in silence, except for the sound of plants being blown in the wind, and we see the young couple, Frank and Natalie (Nick Stahl and Marisa Tomei) running through a field laughing and then we see them in tender kisses and cuddles on the grass as the wind blows past them. The moment is sentimental, but isn’t bogged down by romantic music or heavy emotions. After that, the title card suddenly appears in black and white, which then transitions into the next morning as Frank and his dad Matt Fowler come to pick up Natalie’s oldest son Jason to go fishing. The mood of this quality male time is calm and decent, yet once Thomas Newman’s striking score kicks in as the opening credits appear, there is a tension in the air as the music conveys its hauntingly loud chords. The interesting note is that the credits happen over a bunch of factory employees hard at work with manufacturing fishing goods and then it flows into the next scene where Frank, Matt, and Jason are riding on the fishing boat. During the scene, Matt shows Jason the abdomens of lobsters and about how it’s dangerous to keep more than one lobster in the same trap or “in the bedroom.” It parallels with the situation Frank is caught up in between Natalie and her ex-husband Richard, whose father is the owner of the fishing company Frank works for. There is a symbolism of the vicious tension that arise out of jealousy, just as lobsters are vicious enough with their claws when they’re “in the bedroom” together. At the same time, there is a slightly more peaceful yet eerie quality to the profession that Frank’s mom Ruth works in as she teaches a girl’s choir in Balkan music, which Natalie refers to as “unusual” and “haunting”, which Ruth proudly agrees with. She may not know it, but the haunting score of her taste in music has a chilling resonance to the tragedy that ultimately takes place and the more the girls choir is heard throughout the film, it speaks like a requiem mass that Ruth may not have intended to sound like, but that Todd Field made sure would serve his film with the right mood.

Field also makes an occasional use of cuts-to-black just like what he did with the title card, yet these cuts happen in a row at one point and help create an effective mood of tragedy gradually see how the lives are affected by a blackness that has come into their hearts. For a good chunk of the film, there is not much dialogue or music, which makes the mood more important at this point in the film as opposed to loud outbursts of any sound. The acting of Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek also becomes central at this point as the film focuses more on them and the uncomfortable silence and subtle conversations that take place between them over days and weeks. The deeper the silence gets, the tension continues to rise, despite how hard they try to continue with their lives. Ruth even says to the local pastor that whenever she’s done with her music, there’s “no sound, but so loud.” The silence that is felt is so heavy that it’s effective for how much despair is flowing into the everyday surroundings of the town and the tension between Ruth and Matt is waiting to burst into anger. The build-up the film spends with the cold mood, the quiet emotions of the actors, and the location shots of the small town environment helps fill In The Bedroom with an unpredictable and subtle style that can haunt and mystify an audience. The ending credits most importantly leave the audience with this overwhelming music as we once again hear Thomas Newman’s score from the opening credits play with high uses of violins and bell-like chimes to create a loop of the haunting mood of the film. Once it comes to a repetitious and slow close, we are left in the dark with heavy thoughts and emotions of what we have witnessed throughout the film and we can understand what a life of emptiness would be if this music played over our lives. Along with this, the quiet mood, the subtle performances, and the realism helps this film become a work of art by a powerful auteur, who has not made many films, but it keeps us wanting to see more of his effective style being contributed to future films. This is a gift I have noticed in many independent filmmakers and this was one of the first independent films I saw in my teenage years that introduced me to the power of filmmaking on an auteur scale.