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At the heart of Reservation Road is the notion that compassion works better than revenge. The film, based on the novel by John Burnham Schwartz, is about the accidental death of a child and the aftermath of that accident. Two families are involved. Two fathers -- one who has lost a son, and the one who is responsible for that loss -- must deal with what has happened.
After a hit-and-run accident kills their son, Ethan (Joaquin Phoenix) and his wife Grace (Jennifer Connelly) are left to cope with overwhelming grief. For Ethan, that sense of loss and disbelief slowly turns to anger and frustration, as the police seem incapable of finding the driver of the car that killed his son. Unable to sleep, he sits at his computer night after night, communicating with other grieving parents on the Internet. "Justice" is a subject that comes up often, and before too long, Ethan decides that maybe he should take the law into his own hands. He begins actively searching for the driver.
That man, as the audience knows, already has a role in Ethan's life. He's an attorney named Dwight (Mark Ruffalo), a divorced father of one who lives in the same community and whose life is tied to Ethan's in several ways besides the tragedy.
Dwight has made a mistake and followed it up with a very bad decision, and he is left to wrestle with his conscience as best he can. We should mention that Mark Ruffalo's performance is the best thing in the movie.
Reservation Road is built as a thriller, but a thriller of the emotions. Both men, thanks to stellar performances and a strong script, are three dimensional and entirely believable, so by the time Ethan goes after Dwight looking for revenge, you really won't know who to root for.
You'll know what to root for, however. Reservation Road is all about loss, fear, hatred and revenge, the very things that have been hogging the landscape in post-9/11 America. Like several other movies that were shown here during the Toronto International Film Festival this year, the movie's themes reflect the current American state of paranoia. The film is not about tragedy so much as it is about the aftermath of tragedy.
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Reservation Road is both a character study and a cat-and-mouse thriller; sadly, each element ends up weakening the other. For one thing, the tale becomes predictable. For another, the emotional stakes are not high enough -- only the two men are fully realized characters, and that reduces the rest of the cast to window dressing. Mind you, Reservation Road is still a good movie. It's just that it should have been great.
(This film is rated 14-A)