Kevin Bacon plays 45 year old paedophile Walter, recently released from a 12 year stretch in prison and attempting to adjust to normal life on the outside. He finds work in a lumber yard, takes a small apartment ironically overlooking a grade school, and tries to be as inconspicuous as possible.
His struggle to overcome his attraction to young girls and construct a semblance of normality in his life is made increasingly difficult by the relentless pressure of police inspector Lucas (Mos Def) and the suspicious interferences of co-worker Mary-Kaye (Eve); as well as by his creeping realisation that the man waiting outside the school gates each day is a child molester, and by his own continuing desires.
Small glimmers of hope shine through his lonely life in the form of 3 key characters, each seeking, in their own ways, to accept the disclosure of Walter's dark secret: his brother-in-law Carlos (Benjamin Bratt) remains a loyal friend despite preventing Walter from seeing his 12 year old daughter and despite Walter's sister refusing to see her brother; feisty yet broken Vickie (real-life Mrs. Bacon Kyra Sedgwick) enters into an intense relationship with Walter that deepens into a love that endures the awful revelations; and Walter's burgeoning and initially disturbing friendship with an 11 year old girl finally allows him to see a life beyond his sexual desires.
Paedophilia is the movie industry's last great taboo and yet this low-budget independent by first-time director Nicole Kassell tackles it without hysterics or moralising. It's a sober, measured, muted psychological drama that is so cautious that sometimes I felt the subject matter could have been explored more challengingly.
It opens in the US and UK from this December. I, for one, will watch it again.
Reviews:
+ "Uncomfortable viewing for some, The Woodsman is an honest, earnest study of one of society's least acceptable forms of behaviour that succeeds chiefly due to its expert cast." A positive review from Channel 4.
+ "The mood of the film is so relentlessly bleak that it's hard to take. Even the small victories in Walter's life are muted and underplayed, giving us little hope for his future. You say, 'Well, what kind of happiness and forgiveness should a child molester have?' And I say, probably none." A negative review from Eric D. Snider.
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