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THE
WOODSMAN
review
by Terri Wall
Kevin Bacon gives a subtle but masterful performance as Walter,
a quiet but likable loner and seemingly average man. He has a small
apartment across the street from an elementary school, a job at
a lumber yard and eventually a girlfriend (played by his real-life
wife, Kyra Sedgwick). He's also wrestling with a problem - Walter
has served 12 years in prison for child molestation and has recently
been released on a supervised parole.
 What,
a movie about a convicted child molester! How awful! Why would anyone
want to watch a movie about someone so vile? But is he really so
vile? Of course his actions were, but does that mean he is still
the man he was?
Well, he must still be a predator if he is living across the the
street from an elementary school, mustn't he? That's what
the policeman (Mos Def) who continually hounds him thinks. It turns
out it's the only apartment which had a landlord who would take
a chance on renting to an ex-con.
What would you do if you found out you were working with a pedophile?
Would you out him to all his co-workers because “they have
a right to know”, as the lumberyard secretary (Eve) does? Or
would you protect his secret like his boss (David Allan Grier) does
and let him get on with his life as long as he stays out of trouble?
This movie allows the audience to have an experience which may lead
to spiritual growth. As hard as it is, if we are able to suspend
our judgments of this “monster”, we may come to see him
as a fully dimensional human being. He is a man who is struggling
to overcome his past and his ever-present desires to “be with”
young girls (the movie never goes into detail about the exact nature
of his crimes). He tells others that he never hurt anyone and I
believed him.
We get to feel what it is like for a man to come back to a life
that has moved on without him. His friends are gone and his sister
won't see him. Only his brother-in-law (Benjamin Bratt) seems
to welcome him home and tries to help him.
The woman he meets at work who is herself ostracized for doing a
“man's job” has a past of her own and is at first
shocked when Walter tells her the truth about himself. But can these
two wounded souls learn to trust and possibly even heal each other?
And what about the 11-year-old girl (Hannah Pilkes) Walter follows
into the park? Can it be that this horrible pedophile can actually
help her? And she can help him?
This is not an easy movie to watch but it is a very rewarding one.
Simply put it is about a human being. And isn't that what we
all are?
The Woodsman was directed and and co-written by Nicole Kassell and
based on a play by co-writer Steven Fechter.
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