IN the mood for some dead-child entertain ment tonight? “Reservation Road” has what you’re looking for. It’s “In the Bedroom” crossed with, um, “Fever Pitch.”
This anguish-o-rama about a lawyer and dad (Mark Ruffalo) who accidentally runs over the son of a professor and his wife (Joaquin Phoenix, Jennifer Connelly) operates on daytime-TV-level coincidence and the stupidity of its supposedly brainy characters. Randomly set during the 2004 pennant run of the Boston Red Sox (the Kerry-Bush presidential campaign was also occasionally mentioned at the time, yet no one brings it up here), the movie held my interest only during one brief scene in which Mira Sorvino chats with Jennifer Connelly. At last, I thought, we’re going to hear the inside scoop on why winners of the Best Supporting Actress Oscar disappear into oblivion.
Dwight Arno (Ruffalo) is driving his son home to Connecticut from a Red Sox game when, swerving to avoid another car, he hits the other boy near a gas station. On impulse, Dwight flees the scene.
He is torn up about it, but tells his sleepy son they hit a log and then returns the kid to his ex-wife (Sorvino), who suspects nothing despite Dwight’s nervousness, his busted fender and the news she will soon hear that a boy was killed in a hit and run while Dwight was on the road. Not just any boy, either – the victim is her student.
The dead kid’s father, college prof Ethan (Phoenix, confusing hairiness with acting) hires a lawyer – who turns out to be Dwight Arno. Change the death to an injury, replace the wailing with wisecracking, and this exact story line, with its wobbly array of ridiculous situations, could be a Billy Wilder satire like “The Fortune Cookie.”
Dwight walks into the police station to confess, but the detective handling the case simply starts chatting with him, thinking he’s there on behalf of his client – hilarious! Especially when the cop says the only chance he has to solve the case is if the killer gives himself up.
Only the cast and director Terry George (“Hotel Rwanda”), all of them dazed with Oscarlust, aren’t in on the joke they’re telling. (“The Fortune Cookie,” by the way, earned four nominations and a statue.) While we wait for Dwight to either confess or not, everyone has an emoting contest. Connelly nearly wins it with the scene in which she screams, “MY SON IS DEAD! HE’S NOT COMING HOME TO ME!” I got that, thanks. You know why? Because THIS IS WHAT THE LAST HOUR OF THE MOVIE HAS SHOWN US!
Phoenix nearly tops her, though, with a big mumbly speech at the end, which goes, if I have it transcribed correctly, “Mwagumph nwrbm! Rrrrrmmm! Rrrrmmm!”
Which is about the most eloquent thing said by anyone in a movie that contains lines like “What happened? Murder happened! That’s what happened!” Then there’s “this feeling . . . my stomach a twisted rope, my head exploding, will it ever go away?” My feelings exactly – about this movie.
RESERVATION ROAD
Running time: 102 minutes. Rated R (profanity, disturbing images). At the Sunshine and the Lincoln Plaza.