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Directed By
David Cronenberg
Written By:
Josh Olson, Josh Olson
Cast:
Viggo Mortensen, Ed Harris, Maria Bello, William Hurt, Peter MacNeill, Stephen McHattie, Kyle Schmid, Gerry Quigley, Aidan Devine, Bill MacDonald, Ashton Holmes, Greg Bryk, Deborah Drakeford, Heidi Hayes
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A History of Violence (2005)
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Movie Review by Thom
March 20th, 2008
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Sometimes Violence is the Answer
There are times when you hear a song that so expresses what you are feeling at this moment (or perhaps felt at one time) that you feel connected to the world more so than you normally do. Movies can sometime do the same thing, or perhaps a character or situation. And sometimes a movie makes a point that you often try to make in conversation better than you think you ever could. When people don't get the movie, you're pretty sure that they could never get you.
History of Violence is certainly the latter for me.
Violence tells of common man Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen), that may not be quite so common after all. At story's start, he lives in a small town with wife Edie (Maria Bello) and her son from a previous marriage Jack (Ashton Holmes). Edie and Tom live simple, but happy and passionate, lives; Jack is the whipping boy of the high school bully as Tom preaches non-violence.
Things quickly change, and Tom may be more than he appears, when a pair of hoodlums try to hold up his diner and Tom is forced into action. The resulting exposure upends all normalcy in their lives, threatening to tear it all apart.
A sucker for double-meanings in titles, I loved History of Violence as it not only refers to the personal journey of Mortensen's Tom Stall, but also the width and breadth of violence itself - violence for profit, for fun, in self-defense, sexual violence, and when a preemptive beat-down may be in order.
History of Violence, I think, expresses a few different ideas about violence. That violence can beget violence, but it also illustrates that sometimes violence can be the answer and, in fact, can sometimes be the only answer.
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