Wonderful Movie

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Absolutely Fantastic

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

College professor Ethan Learner (Joaquin Phoenix), his wife Grace, their son Joah and daughter Emma (Elle Fanning) stop at a gas station late at night. Josh gets out. Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo) accidentally runs him over and drive away. Dwight is a divorced dad afraid of losing the limited custody of his son. Ethan is impatient for progress in the police investigation. He hires lawyers and Dwight turns out to be an associate in the firm. As the investigation tightens, the question becomes what what Ethan do when he finds the perpetrator.The actors are some of the best. The material is an unrelenting grind. It insists on pounding the emotional darkness. It is heavy. It also refuses to take sides. However, the crushing load doesn't lead to a satisfying ending. It's a long straight grind with some terrific actors doing good work. The ending could have gone several different ways but it seems to have taken the straight ahead main road.

Ethan and Grace Learner (played superbly by Joaquin Phoenix and Jennifer Connelly) are returning home with their two children Josh and Emma (played by Sean Curley and Elle Fanning) when they make an unscheduled stop at a gas station, while Ethan goes in search of wiper fluid, Grace takes Emma to the restroom while unbeknownst to both parents, Josh wanders off on his own to go and set free some fire flies he had captured for his sister but his mother said they couldn't keep. Meanwhile Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo) and his son Lucas (Eddie Alderson) are racing home to beat the boy's curfew for which his mother (Mira Sorvino) had been calling all day to remind them of. Dwight is divorced from Lucas' mother and though he's a lawyer, she controls visitation rights he does not want to forfeit. In a split second, Dwight is blinded by the high beams of a car in the opposite lane when he gets distracted by his ringing phone and he swerves to avoid a collision with the vehicle as his own car had already drifted past the lane divider in this confusion, he hits Josh, killing him instantly and doesn't stop to investigate. The devastating hit-and-run and the impact of Josh's death on his family, especially the psychological toll is takes on Ethan forms the rest of the movie.

John Burnham Schwartz and director Terry George co-adapted Schwartz's novel about an upscale couple torn apart by grief when one of their two children is killed by a hit-and-run driver (to up the proverbial ante, the little boy is releasing fireflies into the trees when the accident occurs!). After the police find themselves stymied due to a lack of leads, the youngster's father embarks on his own investigation and private vendetta. Movies titled after street names are usually bad news, and this one is no different: the man searching for his son's killer is seen as obsessed and implacable, while his wife accuses him of abandoning her and their daughter (how far back does that old routine go?). Joaquin Phoenix manages to grip the audience with his tightly-wound portrayal of the devastated father, though there's no suspense in his search because the viewer is ten steps ahead of him. All we have left to wait for is the showdown, which is well-acted but not the emotional powerhouse Schwartz and George obviously meant it to be. Their picture seems structured to be another "Ordinary People", yet the supporting characters are not three-dimensional and the scenario is cluttered with overly-familiar minutiae. ** from ****

Such an incredible movie Personally it's Joquain Pheonix's best film. The acting is brilliant. Mark Ruffalo plays a brilliant killer who you really feel sorry for. Joquain Pheonix plays a incredible grief stricken dad. Jennifer Connelly plays a traumatic wife and Elle Fanning plays a emotionally torn sister.Reservation Road follows 2 families. The first family consists of a father (Dwight Arno, Mark Ruffalo) and son (Lucas, Eddie Alderson (I Think)) who are only together for a day because Dwight has lost custody of Lucas. They are returning home from a baseball game and are stuck in traffic to Lucas's mum's annoyance. The second family consist of husband (Ethan Learner, Joquain Phoenix), wife (Grace, Jennifer Connelly) son, (Josh, Sean Curley) and daughter (Emma, Elle Fanning) who are returning from a day out. They stop off at a gas station and Josh runs out onto the road (Reservation Road) and is run over and killed by Dwight who continues driving. Cue a brutally sad scene. The Learner family decide to get legal help so they hire a lawyer. The lawyer is Dwight, Josh's killer, and Ethan didn't see Dwight that night so everything is fine for Dwight. Soon after Emma is being taught the piano by Dwight's ex-wife and Ethan picks up Emma and again sees Dwight. After all these encounters surely Ethan will remember right? Watch it as it is fantastic and you may cry.