Originally published 7/12/04
The Clearing
Director: Pieter Jan Brugge
Writers: Justin Haythe, from a story by Pieter Jan Brugge and Justin Haythe
Producers: Jonah Smith, Palmer West, Pieter Jan Brugge
Stars: Robert Redford, Helen Mirren, Willem Dafoe, Matt Craven, Alessandro Nivola, Melissa Sagemiller, Wendy Crewson
You can almost see it working on stage – an intense character piece where two people carry out a battle of willpower; while elsewhere, someone worries and wonders about the result. The attention paid to these three central personalities is certainly stage-like. But however effective that speculative version of this story might be, the truth is, it’s not working as a movie right now.
Once in awhile we are reminded that actors, even great actors, can only do so much for a movie. In The Clearing, we see three of the best actors working in cinema doing their damndest to render their characters three-dimensional and compelling. But in the end, it is not enough to overcome the indecisive, often plodding rhythms of a story that turns out to be much less than meets the eye.
As we open, two men are getting ready for work. Wayne Hayes (Robert Redford), a successful entrepreneur who has built a career out of being able to charm people, is on the patio with his wife Eileen (Helen Mirren). He’s got his newspaper and his coffee and they’re making the kind of semi-lucid small talk that can only come from two people who know each other well enough to not have to tune in every word, and comfortable enough to know the other won’t make a fuss about it.
Meanwhile, away from their comfortable suburbs, Arnold Mack (Willem Dafoe) is kissing his wife good-bye and applying a false mustache. Dafoe, gifted at pulling audiences into disturbed personalities, is so bottled up here his face is practically folding in on itself – he looks like Henry Fonda worrying about whether he left the gas on.
Arnold makes his way to Wayne’s driveway, flags down his car waving an official-looking envelope, then pulls a gun.
Of course, we don’t see this part right away. The Clearing uses an odd structure, cutting back and forth between two plot threads that, we realize before long, are not chronologically consistent. Eileen first dreads that Wayne has left her (he’s strayed before); then she learns the truth, calls in the FBI, and a series of interviews, investigations, and careful negotiations with the kidnappers begins.
This obviously takes days, if not weeks, but we continue to cut back to Arnold and Wayne on the day of the kidnapping. Arnold says he has simply been hired, because of his familiarity with Wayne and his movements, to fetch him and deliver him to a cabin deep in the woods. Once Wayne is handed off to the real kidnappers, Arnold’s work is done.
In a way, we could consider this a relief, because Arnold seems either to be building an elaborate ruse, or is simply one of the poorest kidnappers ever conceived. He gives away mounds of personal information, doesn’t bother to use a phony name, even dispenses with the fake mustache after awhile. Still, there’s something important to him about this walk, as they sweat up and down woody hills, through creek beds, and stop once in awhile for sandwiches (when Wayne picks the ham one, Arnold passive-aggressively declares “we’ll split it”.)
It’s a study in personality contrast – Wayne lives in a world where he can make anything possible because he believes it and can make others believe it. He’s used to exerting his will. Arnold thinks of himself as a lifetime also-ran – not grieving lost opportunities because he might never have really had one, until now. They met years ago, before Wayne’s company downsized Arnold. “It wasn’t personal” Wayne says sincerely, blissfully unaware of what it’s like to hear that sentence.
The balance of control shifts from moment to moment – Wayne plays on their first-name-basis chats, looks for opportunities to gain the upper hand. Arnold has committed himself fully to this job, but needs to remind himself of that every once in awhile, wavering under Wayne’s alpha-male gaze. He knows he’s not the smart one in this pair, but he does have the gun.
Redford made his name in Hollywood with his golden-boy charms, here he shows us the later-life version of that – the easy way he can whip up authority from air with the right mix of confidence and perception.
Mirren, meanwhile, has her own movie to act in, where she has to maintain strength for her grown-up children (Alessandro Nivola, Melissa Sagemiller) and render any assistance she can to FBI Agent Fuller (Matt Craven). But in a way, it’s as if facing her initial thought that she’s lost her husband, the man she loves for all his flaws, she cannot help but subconsciously follow the patterns of loss, even while she’s trying to get him back.
She reminisces about their youth, their life together. After Fuller produces a damning phone bill, she confronts her husband’s mistress (Wendy Crewson) in a rather extraordinary scene. She shows just how well she understands Wayne and finds the perfect expression for putting the woman in her place, all without losing control of the emotions swirling inside her.
But all well-observed as this central trio of characters is, the filmmakers – veteran producer Pieter Jan Brugge (The Pelican Brief, The Insider) makes his directing debut, screenwriter Justin Haythe has no prior produced credits – cannot seem to ever let the movie strongly center on any one. It skips from Eileen to Arnold to Wayne and back again and never really gets up to speed. The tempo is unwavering, grim, and ultimately dull.
By the time Eileen is called upon to execute a complicated ransom drop, the movie threatens to find a higher gear but can’t seem to hide how obligatory it considers this bit. Mirren works hard to create tension, and is believably distressed – she has reason to suspect Wayne is no longer even alive – but by this point the audience has been lulled too far.
The deliberate rhythm of the first two thirds, at first seemingly a blessing for the attention it affords its characters, becomes its millstone. You can’t blame the actors, who create fully-realized people. But fundamentally, the movie fails to provide the drama for them to travel through. I don’t consider it a failure, just a disappointment.