''Reservation Road'' is a 2007 American
crime drama film
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...
directed by
Terry George
Terence George (born 20 December 1952) is an Irish screenwriter and director. Much of his film work (e.g. ''The Boxer'', '' Some Mother's Son'', and ''In the Name of the Father'') involves "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland.
He was nominated f ...
and based on the book of the same title by
John Burnham Schwartz, who, along with George, adapted the novel for the screenplay. The film, starring
Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Rafael Phoenix (; né Bottom; born October 28, 1974) is an American actor. He is known for playing dark and unconventional characters in independent films. He has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academ ...
and
Mark Ruffalo
Mark Alan Ruffalo (; born November 22, 1967) is an American actor and producer best known for playing Bruce Banner / Hulk since 2012 in the superhero franchise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and in the television series '' She-Hulk: Attorne ...
,
deals with the aftermath of a fatal
car crash. It was released to theaters on October 19, 2007.
Plot
Dwight Arno is an attorney who is divorced from his wife Ruth. Ruth controls custody of their son Lucas while Dwight maintains visitation rights. Dwight and Lucas are at a baseball game when Ruth calls, informing Dwight that he is late returning their son home. Dwight drives Lucas home in a hurry, thinking he might otherwise forfeit his visitation privileges. When he loses control of his vehicle, he strikes a young boy, Josh Learner, who is standing by the roadside.
Aware that he has struck the boy, Dwight decides to flee the scene. He further lies to Lucas, who has a minor injury from the incident, saying that they had collided with a tree log. Dwight later hears on a newscast that Josh died in the collision. Subsequently, he tries to cover up the evidence which implicates him in the hit-and-run. After the initial shock, Josh's mother Grace gradually tries to get on with life, but her husband Ethan obsesses over finding the perpetrator. Frustrated with the lack of progress the police are making, Ethan eventually decides to hire a lawyer, who oddly enough turns out to be Dwight.
Consumed with guilt, Dwight thinks of turning himself in. At the police station he is at the point of confessing, but, being a coward, he doesn't go through with it. The investigating officer, thinking he has come as Ethan's lawyer, admits that the case is going nowhere and leaves the room before Dwight says anything. While picking up his daughter Emma, who has begun taking piano lessons from Ruth, Ethan encounters Dwight again. In anticipation of going to jail later, Dwight asks Ruth to have Lucas for a week stating that it will be the last week for a long time. Sensing desperation, Ruth reluctantly agrees.
Later during a school performance, Ethan overhears Dwight call out to his son and begins to recognize his voice from the accident. Ethan starts suspecting Dwight as the perpetrator and secretly investigates him; eventually discovering the truth. Ethan fears that Dwight would be sentenced to only a short time in prison. He buys a gun and arrives at Dwight's house just as Lucas has gone to bed. Dwight begs Ethan to take him outside and spare Lucas the trauma. Ethan forces Dwight into the trunk of his car and lets him out after a short drive. Because of Ethan's emotional state and resulting hesitation, Dwight manages to grab the gun and point it at Ethan. He then points the gun at himself and convinces Ethan that he wishes he had died instead of Josh. Ethan leaves Dwight to deal with his remorse. The film ends with Lucas, by himself, watching a taped confession to the hit-and-run that Dwight had made earlier.
Cast
*
Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Rafael Phoenix (; né Bottom; born October 28, 1974) is an American actor. He is known for playing dark and unconventional characters in independent films. He has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academ ...
as Ethan Learner
*
Mark Ruffalo
Mark Alan Ruffalo (; born November 22, 1967) is an American actor and producer best known for playing Bruce Banner / Hulk since 2012 in the superhero franchise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and in the television series '' She-Hulk: Attorne ...
as Dwight Arno
*
Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Lynn Connelly (born December 12, 1970) is an American actress. She began her career as a child model before making her acting debut in the 1984 crime film ''Once Upon a Time in America''. After having worked as a model for several year ...
as Grace Learner
*
Mira Sorvino
Mira Katherine Sorvino (; born September 28, 1967) is an American actress. She won the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Woody Allen's '' Mighty Aphrodite'' (1995).
She also starred in the films ...
as Ruth Wheldon
*
Elle Fanning
Mary Elle Fanning (born April 9, 1998) is an American actress. She made her film debut as the younger version of her sister Dakota Fanning's character in the drama film '' I Am Sam'' (2001). As a child actress, she appeared in several films, i ...
as Emma Learner
*
Eddie Alderson as Lucas Arno
*
Sean Curley as Josh Learner
*
Antoni Corone as Sergeant Burke
Production
Filming
The film was shot in
Stamford, Connecticut, starting in late October, 2006, with the very first city scene fro
Annapolis, Maryland and the next scene at
Cove Island Park in Stamford. Parts of the movie were also filmed at
Lake Compounce
Lake Compounce is an amusement park located in Bristol and Southington, Connecticut. Opened in 1846, it is the oldest continuously operating amusement park in the United States. It spans , which includes a beach and a water park called Crocodile ...
Amusement Park in
Bristol, Connecticut
Bristol is a suburban city located in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States, southwest-west of Hartford. The city is also 120 miles southwest from Boston, and approximately 100 miles northeast of New York City. As of the 2020 census, th ...
, and the Olde Blue Bird Inn & Gas Station and adjacent Baseball Field in
Easton, Connecticut
Easton is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 7,605 at the time of the 2020 census. Easton contains the historic district of Aspetuck and the Plattsville census-designated place. Part of the Greater Bridg ...
. Shots of
Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts are used in the trailer and movie.
Release
''Reservation Road'' grossed a total of $36,269 in its first weekend. It ended up making $121,994 in the United States, and ended with a worldwide gross of $1,783,190.
The film was released on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
on April 8, 2008.
Reception
The film received mixed reviews from critics.
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
gives the film an average score of 46 out of 100, based on 29 reviews.
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
gives the film 38% based on reviews from 112 critics, with an
average rating
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...
of 5.23/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "While the performances are fine, ''Reservation Road'' quickly adopts an excessively maudlin tone along with highly improbable plot turns."
References
External links
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{{Terry George
2007 films
2007 crime drama films
2000s English-language films
American crime drama films
Films about child death
Films about grieving
Films about road accidents and incidents
Films based on American novels
Films directed by Terry George
Films scored by Mark Isham
Films set in Connecticut
Films shot in Connecticut
Films shot in Martha's Vineyard
Focus Features films
2000s American films