Movie: The Woodsman

I just saw The Woodsman. It falls into that class of movies for me where when you go to the vid-emporium you see it, you know its supposed to be good, you might even drag a couple of fingers across the cover, and then you always rent something else. This time it came home with me.

Kevin Bacon plays a convicted child molester just out of prison after 12 years and facing all the problems such a person would face on reentry. No friends except his brother in law played by Benjamin Bratt. I don’t want to give anything away so you will mostly have to trust me on this being a film you should see. Its difficult to watch at times even though nothing really graphic occurs. I will say that it ends somewhat positively without being trite or easy. And all the time I was watching this I kept thinking how courageous Bacon was to take on the role.

One curious thing about the film is how cigarettes are treated in it. Bacon ends up with a woman (Kyra Sedgwyck) who smokes all the time. Try to remember the last time you saw this in a film without someone asking if it was alright to smoke, or someone talking about quitting one way or another, or saying these things’ll kill me. And Bacon’s character doesn’t smoke and is often sharing cars and beds with this person and never says a word. Not that he is really coming from moral high ground.