THE WOODSMAN
Directed by Nicole Kassell
Opening soon
(***)
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Written By: John H. Foote
     Being the father of two young daughters, reading the stories I come across in the newspapers about child predators and child molesters angers me. In my mind I say to myself if anyone ever touched my children I would very likely get back at them with my bare hands, jail or not. We forget that these predators are human beings, were once children themselves, and often the victims of abuse in their childhood or youth. While I have no patience for their crimes, nor any forgiveness, I cannot deny the fact they are people and are no doubt tormented by their urgings and crimes.
  
The Woodsman is a daring new film that premiered nearly a year ago at the Sundance Film Festival and later played in the Toronto International Film Festival which is where I saw the film for the first time. Bleak, depressing and powerful, the film explores the life of a convicted child molester upon his release from prison after serving twelve years for his crimes.

   Walter (Kevin Bacon) keeps to himself at his new job at a lumber yard, choosing to eat his lunch quietly away from everyone else. He rarely speaks to anyone, and at quitting time takes the bus home to his small apartment directly across from a public school. He has no friends with the exception of his brother in law, who visits him and talks about his daughter, the niece Walter will never see. His sister will not see him, none of his family will se him, and he is utterly alone. Visits to the psychiatrist bring about the question, “When will I be cured”, “When will I be normal” as Walter truly does attempt to fight the urgings he feels. He makes an enemy of a receptionist at the lumber year that looks into his past, is terrorized from time to time by a young detective portrayed by Mos Def, and begins seeing Vickie (Kyra Sedgwick) a fellow lumberyard employee who has no idea of his past until he tells her. She is at first horrified that he could have done such things, but is strangely drawn to him, feeling a bond with his loneliness. When his old longings come calling to him, he fights them, and we the audience are rooting for him to beat them back before he lands himself in trouble again, and ruins the life of another child.
 
  There is a crucial scene late in the film that will unsettle and alarm many viewers as it disturbed me. Walter stalks an eleven year old bird watcher and as they talk his lust for her begins to take over. He asks her to do something and when she answers him she realizes that this child is already a victim of child abuse at the hands of her father. Walter’s decision here is a turning point in his life and marks a step towards some form of redemption.
  
Kevin Bacon gives an edgy brave performance that is quite simply the finest of his career. He captures the self loathing of the character, hating himself for what he is and for what his desires have done to him and those around him. He knows how society views him, knows how the owner of the lumberyard sees him (giving him the job because of Walter’s loyalty to his father), and is tormented by his thoughts of children. We see the character at war with himself and we feel for him, which is a huge accomplishment for the actor given the role he is playing. How does one portray a child molester and get you to root for him? I am not sure but Bacon does it. Perhaps because he approaches the role without asking for forgiveness, without pandering for the sympathy of audience, without backing away from what he has done…because of the raw honesty Bacon brings to the film. Walter is a devastated man convinced he has no hope for any chance of a real life, but when he encounters Vickie he finds someone wounded like him who believes in him.
 
  Nothing excuses what Walter has done. NOTHING!!! DID EVERYONE GET THAT!!!! NOTHING!!!!
  
However both Bacon and the director possess the courage to make clear that Walter is a human being, tormented and destroyed by his longings and the sickness within him. No punches are pulled in what Walter is. He is a child predator; a deeply sick man who takes advantage of children. He likes it when little girls sit on his lap, and though we are never clear as to whether or not he raped anyone (it seems he did not) he still put a child in harm’s way for his own gratification.
  
The Woodsman is an enormously brave film that could not have been made within the studio system. This is the type of courageous independent work that comes from dedicated filmmakers and actors who feel strongly about something. Kevin Bacon is a husband and father who wanted to draw attention t something and threw himself into the role to do so. His courage pays off with one of the year’s best performances and one that could land the actor an Oscar nomination.
 
  Kyra Sedgwick, Bacon’s real life wife and mother of his children is equally good as Vickie, the tough little girl at the mill who falls for him and offers him a second chance on life, which is also one for her as well. Her work is achingly honest and effective as she inhabits the character throughout the film.
  
In a small but frightening performance Mos Def portrays a cop who has already made a decision about Walter based on his rap sheet, which is of course meant to be a metaphor for what society thinks of these offenders. Def shows up unannounced at Walters’ home whenever he pleases and proceeds to terrorize the man with accusations and comments about his past. He knows Walter is watching the school, but what he does not know is the truth of why Walter is so curious at what is happening in the schoolyard.
  
Nicole Kassell demonstrates a confident hand with her actors and story, knowing that for the audience, the story is through Walter. Without a strong performance from Bacon, the director knows she is in trouble, thus she turns her actor loose to give a quiet performance of a man tormented by the demons that reach into his mind.










   Quietly terrifying, bold and powerful.  
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