The Woodsman is one gutsy little film.
Directed by Nicole Kassell and based on a one-act play by Steven Fechter (who shares screenplay credit with Kassell), this quiet, lean film tells the story of Walter (Kevin Bacon), a pedophile released from prison after 12 years for the molestation of young girls. He moves into a small apartment, lands a job at a lumberyard and does his best to control his most reprehensible impulses.
Needless to say, we are not in the realm of popcorn movie. The Woodsman is disturbing and memorable. But it challenges its audience without resorting to sensationalism or cheap exploitation.
And at its core, The Woodsman is not that very different from many dramas of internal conflict. The laconic Walter's quandary resembles many a noir protagonist. He is a haunted by his own demons and awful past, and he desperately wants to move beyond it. From a dramatist's perspective, however, The Woodman takes the risky move of upping the ante, making its flawed hero guilty of the most vile sort of crime.
And that's the tightrope that The Woodsman walks, presenting Walter as he struggles to reintegrate into society with the help of a co-worker named Vicki, (Kyra Sedgwick, Bacon's real-life wife), a tough loner nursing her own psychological scars. Aside from this tense relationship, Walter's only other meaningful interaction with others involves therapy sessions and visits from his brother-in-law (Benjamin Bratt) and a wary police detective (Mos Def). We are encouraged to sympathize with Walter — who wants to be normal, he tells his therapist — even if we don't forgive or forget his sins.
The Woodsman is the feature-film debut of New York University film school graduate Kassell. Like another NYC film school grad, Maria Full of Grace director Joshua Marston, this is a superb drama that pursues a little-considered slice of social consciousness without preachiness or pandering.
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