A History of Violence

Viggo Mortensen as “Tom Stall” and Maria Bello as “Edie Stall” in New Line Cinema’s “A History of Violence.”
Photo Credit: ©2005 Takashi Seida/New Line Productions

 
To describe David Cronenberg as a narcissist would be an affront to mirrors. Mirrors, unlike Cronenberg, are quite clear.

Originally, I started writing this review by describing the events in this film, one after another. I got to about seven-hundred words only to realize that I hadn’t found a single, narrative thread, but instead spent the entire time describing a series of scenes—some brilliant and others overwrought.

Two men exit what appears to be a motel. As they approach the car, one of them is getting prepared to leave. He drives up a few feet, and then stops. This is an interesting shot, both because it’s setting an unusually comical tone for such a serious film, and because the camera, in a medium-wide profile shot, stays locked to the car’s movement.

“What took you so long?” says one of the men.

“Nothin’. I had a little trouble with the maid but… everything’s fine,” replies the other.

The first, wearing a white t-shirt, short hair and with a young face, enters the office. A body, slain, is spread on the floor, and another lay in a chair—bloodied. It looks like a robbery has just taken place. A very young girl enters the office. He draws his gun and shoots her.

This first scene establishes a tone that is later abandoned for such a morose humor (not to be confused with “dark comedy”) courtesy of William Hurt—playing the most namby-pamby bad guy since Shane Brolly in “Underworld”.

There is, in the entire film, one truly interesting and nearly original thought that Cronenberg bothers to actually linger on. After work, Tom Stall (Viggo Mortenson) is picked up by his wife Edie (Maria Bello). She makes an impromptu getaway with him for some sexual roleplay. She emerges from the bathroom dressed in a cheerleader outfit.

“We never got to be teenagers together,” says Edie.

The sex is not sensationalized. It’s rather realistic—awkward yet playful. It sets up a stark contrast to the later scene in which Tom is the one who becomes entirely another person. What’s interesting is the way Cronenberg uses moments like this to establish one side of a character and then, later, introduce brutal violence to summon the other side. Cronenberg flirts with the cinematic relationship between graphic sex and graphic violence—but I don’t feel he dares to explore it fully.

In a scene that follows, Tom’s son Jack (Ashton Holmes) delivers one of several obvious truths discussed in the course of this film, “Eventually, we grow up, get jobs, have affairs and we become alcoholics.”

Jack could be considered a pacifist, but I think of him as a well-schooled pragmatist—Tom being his teacher in that regard. He’s learned that you must pick your battles wisely. Jack is confronted by one of the jocks at his school, Bobby Jordan (Kyle Schmid), over a baseball game in gym class that Bobby’s team lost thanks to Jack. Jack immediately resists the urge to fight, by debating with Bobby the sense involved in Bobby picking a fight he knows he can win. I like this character, too bad he’s stuck in a film that doesn’t allow more exploration of who he is.

Does the dialogue in earnest, between Jack and a high school girl, continue and evolve into a piece exploring the idiosyncrasies and peculiarities of human routine? No, in fact it doesn’t go anywhere at all. Cronenberg is too busy loving the way he sets up scenes to bother to actually follow them through to a logical conclusion. Cronenberg is too fascinated with himself to focus on his characters, which are… er, would have been, the strength of the narrative—if this film had a cogent one at all.

As events unfold, the two killers from the opening scene later enter the diner where Tom works. The diner’s closed but the men insist on entering, and subsequently hold Tom and his co-worker hostage. Something in Tom’s mind snaps, abruptly, and his reaction is delivered with an efficiency and precision rather unusual for his character—not without reason.

Tom finds himself the center of attention in a small town. The residents support him and business at his diner booms. There aren’t many media outlets, but one reporter does try to question him at home about how it feels to have been in such a frightening situation.

Plainly, Tom responds, “Not very good.”

There may be at least a couple of explanations as to why he lacks an emotional response to the experience he’s just had. Before we get to mull over that question, a black, luxury sedan—out of place here—pulls into town. Two men in suits enter the diner.

Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris), a disfigured man, has a rather forward interest in the incident. Fogarty’s East coast accent suggests he’s come quite a distance to speak with Tom. He thinks that Tom has been to Philadelphia and repeatedly calls him Joey. This could have opened the door to some deep insights into not just human nature, but, as Shakespeare often toyed with it, the differences between seeming and being.

My brother and I recently discussed the nature of relationships and how they evolve… How much does one really know about their parents? Do you understand who your father was when he was five? Do you have a concept of who your spouse was five years before you met him/her? Do you know the difference between your concept of that person, and who they really are?

There’s a phenomenal opportunity to explore the psychology of interpersonal relationships but Cronenberg chose a superficial and pedestrian path that betrays a gross immaturity regarding his understanding of evolutionary biology. He has a lurid fascination with the fine line between pain and pleasure, as is exhibited in one scene where, immediately after an episode of violence, Tom has angry sex with his wife. She gets turned on by such role play.

So what? It’s basic Biology 101 to know that our brains process pain and pleasure in the same locus, through the same set of nerve receptors, and thus the difference between pain and pleasure stimuli is largely a matter of perception and occasion… and if Cronenberg (the director of such biologically-inept films as “Scanners” and “The Fly”) understood or at least researched a shred of human psychology and neuroscience, he might realize that he’s condescending to his audience by bothering us with such a banal examination of what’s relatively obvious to anyone who’s ever picked at a scab and couldn’t stop.

By contrast, the absolute standout of this movie is Viggo Mortenson’s performance as Tom/Joey. Without being too deliberate, he’s convincing as someone who can keep a secret until other circumstances force him to confront his past. You can sense in his face the exact moment when he snaps to, from Tom to Joey, or vice-versa. That’s another quality Viggo brings to this character. You cannot necessarily tell whether Tom is Joey’s alter ego or the other way around. Well done, Mr. Underhill.

Mortenson’s characterization of Tom/Joey reminds me of Ed Norton in “Primal Fear” but here there’s repeated personality-switching throughout this film, rather than one easily-discernable twist of character. If Cronenberg could focus on that human quality, “fight or flight,” and how it can make entirely different persons out of each of us in a crisis, he could have capitalized less on the element of shock and more on the difference between our instinctual and affected selves.

I should perhaps mention that Maria Bello gave an excellent performance, and I think it’s a given from my earlier comments that Ashton Holmes as Jack demonstrates great potential for his career ahead, but this film is so mired in itself that it is, unfortunately, only Mortenson’s acting that transcends Cronenberg’s nonsense.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS: We learn that Tom had a previous life, in fact, as Joey Cusack. We learn he did kill, not simply because he had to, but because he enjoyed it. Given this, when Tom/Joey does kill later on in the film, wouldn’t the natural reaction be to ask whether he did it for pleasure or to protect his family, or both? The director doesn’t care to dissect this side of human nature.

Instead of dwelling on that question, Cronenberg spends infinitely more time exploring, in a rather non-sequitur dialogue, the goofier side of organized criminals. Then, the film’s tone abruptly changes again, as the director beats a path to an act of vengeance that gives us no insights, no satisfaction and no questions to ponder. The ending that follows feels as though it were slapped on at the last minute in an effort to distract us from various manic-depressive digressions of pitch, tone and timbre.

Why, in all possible worlds, was it necessary to shift gears back and forth when Cronenberg could have focused our attention clearly on the most intriguing question this film never sincerely examined: If who we have been plays a part in who we are, and who we become, how does it affect those around us who have no frame of reference for a personality that was established prior to the timeline of coexistence with us?

What we are left with is a distorted sense of time. “A History of Violence” could have occupied less than sixty minutes but took over ninety, only to feel like three hours.

A History of Violence • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Running Time: 1 hour 36 minutes • MPAA Rating: R for strong brutal violence, graphic sexuality, nudity, language and some drug use. • Distributed by New Line Cinema