But nothing's predictable when you're dealing with Cronenberg.
David Cronenberg is a very strange man.
We knew this, of course. After an initial run of straight horror films (
Scanners
), the director set forth to amplify his affinity for sociopathology (
Dead Ringers, Spider
), kinky sex (
Crash, Dead Ringers
again) and the twisted pop sensibilities (
The Fly
) which make him so hard to classify-are we supposed to laugh, or is he being stupidly, unintentionally funny? He'll perversely cast primarily comic actors like Jeff Goldblum, or stage thesps such as Jeremy Irons, in films where they're asked to work against their own instincts-we think-but honestly we're never really sure, not even after a second or third viewing, what's meant to be post-modern funny and what desperately serious. If you're among the uncertain who don't even know if they're Cronenberg fans or detractors, I'm afraid
A History of Violence
will do nothing to sort out your assessment.
***image1***
Small-town coffee-shop owner Tom Stall (Mortensen) presents as an Indiana everyman; he drives an old pickup and lives with his wife Edie (the luscious Maria Bello) and two kids in a clapboard house. He's almost obnoxiously civic-minded, stopping on his morning walk to pick up litter, and we'd probably dislike him immediately if it weren't for Mortensen's gentle manner, a wide-eyed sweetness bordering on the simple-minded. The opening credits, however, track the sauntering spree of a pair of soulless murderers and inevitably they choose Stall's diner as the scene of their next pointless crime. To everyone's surprise, including Tom's, he swings into unhesitating action, killing both men and saving his coworkers. Local and national news networks swoop eagerly down upon the story, portraying Tom as an all-American hero, to his growing unease. Before long a black-suited man in sunglasses named Fogarty (a delightfully villainous Ed Harris) turns up, pointedly referring to Tom as "Joey Cusack," frightening the kids and insisting their dad's a vicious Mafia hitman from Philly. The more Fogarty lurks and threatens revenge, the more plausibly Tom denies his accusations: "Don't you wonder how he became so good at killing?" Fogarty hisses to Edie, and having seen Tom in action, we're right there with him. What gives?
***image2***At times this film is beautifully photographed (that opening sequence could be Peckinpah or even Kurosawa) and at other times it's clunky and stark, with "adaptation" written all over it. Sometimes Mortensen's nearly mute, as though reprising his tongue-tied Amish chap from
Witness
, while at others he mugs goofily for the camera or offers moments of pure physical performance, almost unencumbered by character, in which we see him become frighteningly alien and amoral, confirming a suspicious Edie's worst new fears. Then there's the unhesitating, grotesque carnage, further confusing matters. Is Canadian Cronenberg alluding to our nation's, well, history of violence, and making a Meaningful Statement? Or is this just another Tarentinoesque besplattered-brains-
for-besplattered-brains'-sake type of treatment?
Half comic-book parable, heavy-handed and overt, half art film, sly and self-referential,
A History of Violence
is the kind of cinema out of which audiences emerge into the night talking a mile a minute and arguing fiercely. Whether you find it brilliant, cartoonish, repulsive or just inscrutable, there's no question that it's an important piece of work, and will be discussed, defended and derided for quite some time to come.
