Film Review: A History of Violence @ Capitol 7
David Cronenberg is without a doubt the strangest Canadian director around. Despite working in a country that is known for an excessively polite and repressed attitude, Cronenberg actively explores the extremes of sex and violence in his work.
His movies are filled with perverse and disturbing sequences, but he is more than simply an exploitation filmmaker infatuated with shocking audiences. His films are driven by their intellectual conceits, not their graphic imagery. Whether it is the exploration of the media in Videodrome, the study of madness in Spider, or the examination of disease in The Fly, Cronenberg’s twisted imagination is always sparked by ideas rather than gore.
His latest movie, A History of Violence, is a study of violence in America. Cronenberg grafts his issues onto a fairly conventional plot (based on a graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke), and it’s his most mainstream film since The Fly. And much like The Fly, History is a movie that can be enjoyed on a purely visceral level, but can also be appreciated on a deeper level by audience willing to look for subtexts beneath its glossy exterior.
A History of Violence opens in an impossibly quaint small town in America. Viggo Mortensen stars as Tom Stall, a happy family man and owner of a local diner. His life seems almost too perfect, and indeed it is. This opening is merely misdirection—Cronenberg is presenting the audience with the world of a Frank Capra movie, only to tear it down by the end of the first act.
Two criminals arrive in Stall’s diner and threaten the staff’s lives. In an act of self-defense, Stall kills the strangers. He then becomes a local celebrity and is deemed a hero for his actions. As a result of all the media attention, a stranger, played by Ed Harris, comes to town looking for Tom. He claims to know Tom, but by another name, and suggests that Tom has killed many times before.
Describing the plot any further would ruin the many surprises the movie holds. Cronenberg handles the many twists with a deft hand.
The film is wonderfully paced, steadily building up tension between explosions of violence. The action scenes are played straight, and with an unblinking eye. The violence is shocking, but realistic and for this reason it never feels gratuitous. We are disgusted by what we see, but this is deliberate and for a purpose. The narrative is exciting enough for the film to succeed as a generic thriller, but it also operates on other, deeper levels. Cronenberg uses the film as an examination of the nature of violence in American society. He looks at the way violence is so ingrained into the American psyche that even the most innocent citizens are capable of horrific actions. It is always there, lurking beneath the surface waiting to be let out. Cronenberg also acknowledges the ironies surrounding the American attitudes towards violence.
In particular, there is a scene in which Tom Stall tries to scold his son for attacking a school bully. Tom tells his son “in this family we don’t hit people,” to which the teenager replies, “No, in this house we shoot them.” This exchange is loaded enough, but then Cronenberg takes it one step further and has the frustrated Tom slap his son is response. Such scenes are common in the movie; rarely does any action in the movie take place without some sort of subtext.
The acting in A History of Violence is also quite strong. Viggo Mortensen shines as Tom Stall. He creates a believable, nice-guy persona in the first act only to transform into a completely different character by the end of the movie.
It is a performance that—given an unexpected plot twist—should be different on second viewing, revealing emotions that were not especially apparent on first viewing.
Ed Harris and William Hurt make the best of their minimal screen time as the villains of the piece. Their roles are quite difficult, as they require a strong, threatening presence that will hang over the movie in their absence, and both actors succeed irably.
Maria Bello and Ashton Holmes are also superb as Tom Stall’s wife and son, respectively. Both roles require significant changes in the characters as they come to grips with Tom’s erratic behavior, and Bello and Holmes both prove to be up to the challenge.
Cronenberg has always worked well with actors, and in A History of Violence, he has assembled an ensemble cast without a single weak effort.
All that being said, A History of Violence is hardly a perfect movie. Its comic-book origins are evident in some of the characters who, despite some subtle work from the actors, can be a little one-dimensional.
Likewise, Cronenberg’s attraction to weird sex scenes that reveal character feels a little tacked-on in this movie. As always, it makes for interesting subject matter, but it does not feel indispensable in this film as it did in his past work (notably Crash).
A History of Violence also lacks the fearless experimentation of his work on projects such as Videodrome.
Still, for a Hollywood movie, A History of Violence is an amazing piece of work. It is rare for a movie to offer effective cheap thrills as well as fascinating concepts and themes. For this reason, A History of Violence will undoubtedly be known as one of the finest movies this year.
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