Film Review - A History of Violence

I watched the start of Celebrity Big Brother recently, as all the different " personalities" were led into the house, to share the same space for 3 weeks. The phrase that sprung to mind was Car Crash Television; create a disaster in a boiling pot, then film the whole thing. David Cronenburg himself has a history of creating unsettling viewing, so I steeled myself for History of Violence, expecting a bumpy ride.

The opening sequence exposes an underbelly of violence that never leaves, threatening to resurface at any time. In creating some calm water before the storm, we're introduced to Tom Stall (played by Viggo Mortensen), who runs a small-town diner in a quiet Indiana town. He seems to have it all; a loving marriage, the two of them playful like high-school kids, and they have two good children. Even here, the threat of boil-over is present - his son is bullied at school, and you know there's only so many times he'll bite his lip and ignore the unwelcome attention.

Two villains decide to raid the diner one late night, and Tom, to protect his staff grabs one of their guns, and inflicts the most violent end on them. Tom shuns the press attention he receives, becoming a reluctant hero. There follows a visit by Carl Fogerty (Ed Harris), a gangland boss from Philadelphia, who claims to know Tom as Joey Cusack. It seems Tom's life will never be the same again. He has started to live by the sword, and his past comes under scrutiny as he fights to protect his present.

Cronenburg expertly exposes a seam of violence in a sleepy midwest town that threatens to dismantle everything. Amidst all this chaos, there are some decent performances, Ed Harris shows a calm menace and William Hurt has an interesting cameo. But it's Mortenson who shines, he has enough understated presence to be able to dominate or disappear in a scene, and manages to expertly convey a full range of fear, shock and despair before he too is reduced to a single dimension by the violence.

If there's a criticism, it's that the Cronenburg paint-by-numbers lacks any subtlety at all. The violence is always overblown and over-bloody. The comfort zone, when it is portrayed, is always a little too cheesy and cloying. Where his art lies is in threading the two round each other, blurring the lines between them. The impact upon his wife is realistically handled, with a honest performance from Maria Bello, and his son struggles too with the morals he has been taught, and how he now sees his dad affected. In Crash, Cronenburg attempted to make a connection between the trauma of a car crash and the passion of the sexual act - literally Car Crash voyeurism. At one point, he attempts to morph stark violence with Tom's candy-floss marriage, and produces a grotesque and laughable sex scene.

As a brazen, bleak examination of violence, it's classic Cronenburg. For the most part, he manages to blur the lines well between the different passions on show, but as with all Car Crash viewing there is little enough soul, and even less hope. 7/10

Footnote: History of violence is based on the following graphic novel