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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Reservation Road
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 29 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 9 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
John Burnham Schwartz (novel)
Terry George
John Burnham Schwartz
Directed by: Terry George
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 19, 2007
DVD: April 8, 2008
Running Time: 102 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for language and some disturbing images
Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Connelly, and Mira Sorvino
Based on the critically acclaimed novel of the same name by John Burnham Schwartz, this is a compelling new dramatic thriller. A tale of anger, revenge, and great courage, the film follows two fathers as their families and lives converge. On a warm September evening, college professor Ethan Learner, his wife Grace, and their daughter Emma are attending a recital. Their 10-year-old son Josh is playing cello--beautifully, as usual. His younger sister looks up to him, and his parents are proud of their son. On the way home, they all stop at a gas station on Reservation Road. There, in one terrible instant, Josh is taken from them forever. On a warm September evening, law associate Dwight Arno and his 11-year-old son Lucas are attending a baseball game. Their favorite team, the Red Sox, is playing, and hopefully heading for the World Series. Dwight cherishes his time spent with Lucas. Driving his son back to his ex-wife, Lucas' mother Ruth Wheldon, Dwight heads toward his fateful encounter at Reservation Road. The accident happens so fast that Lucas is all but unaware, whereas Ethan--the only witness--is all too aware when a panicked Dwight speeds away. The police are called, and an investigation begins. Haunted by the tragedy, both fathers react in unexpected ways, as do Grace and Emma. As a reckoning looms, the two fathers are forced to make the hardest choices of their lives. (Focus Features)
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
There's a kind of tough beauty to this deft, satisfying thriller.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
It's a relentlessly downbeat, well-acted melodrama that's easy to admire, but intentionally impossible to enjoy.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
A powerful Christian parable, painful but illuminating, about crime and redemption.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
Connelly, in particular, soars as the nail-biting mother trying desperately to put on a brave face and keep her family together, while Ruffalo and Phoenix, two of Hollywood’s best brooders, are excellent as wounded young fathers.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Unrelentingly bleak, the movie is nonetheless a riveting drama with some outstanding performances.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
Instead of a tense, emotional and psychological thriller or a thoughtful exploration of grief and guilt, what we end up with is ... soap. Whether you choose to wash your hands of it is up to you.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The book tore at my heart; the movie left me strangely unmoved.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Tries rather feebly to examine complex questions of morality. It does a better job of capturing a sense of shattering grief, but it gets too caught up in plot contrivances and coincidences to be believable.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
It's hard to watch two fine actors working themselves into a lather for so little reward.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
Ruffalo is so squirrelly in the role that he seems like a dead giveaway from the start. You know exactly where the story is going, and, dang, that's exactly where it goes.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
The result is that, rather than tragedy, this unfolds like a plodding morality tale in which Wrath and Cowardice play out their respective parts.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The best efforts of the performers cannot authenticate a plot that no longer feels inevitable. It feels contrived. And the audience stays at a remove instead of entering someone else’s nightmare.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Even the best actors -- and I'd rank Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo among their generation's finest -- can't save a movie that aims for tragedy but stalls at soap opera.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
George, director of "Hotel Rwanda," is better at directing actors than visual storytelling. Every time the camera tilted to suggest a character's shaken world or distorted worldview I didn't feel heartache, I felt headache.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
The real problem with this movie isn't its trashy side - the "Death Wish" stuff is actually suspenseful. It's the creepy note of causal judgment that hangs over it.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
Serious Acting Opportunities abound! Unfortunately, sharp dialogue and characters who keep you riveted do not.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub
Despite some solid acting, the film is lacking in surprises. For all the suffering that these characters endure, there's very little payoff.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
The kind of movie that moves you to tears even as you resent the manipulative mechanics of the story.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
There is no reason why Reservation Road could not have been great. George has co-written some powerful films in the past, including two for Daniel Day-Lewis, "In the Name of the Father" and "The Boxer." He is not wrong to want to mainline intensity here, but the inner lives of these men have not been explored, only displayed.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Paints itself into a corner, creating a static situation in which everyone is either stymied or wracked by indecision, leaving the movie free for its two male leads to wallow in self-pity, remorse and bad behavior.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
A dramatic situation that should be wrenching is mostly tedious in Reservation Road.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Scott Foundas
Reservation Road itself may twist and turn into the New England night, but emotionally and dramatically, the movie that bears its name is a dead end.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
Very little in Reservation Road ultimately rings true, which makes the anguished theatrics on display that much more exasperating.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Robert Abele
Neither involving as a study in grief nor compelling as a thriller about conscience, the cat-and-mouse tragedy Reservation Road is a misery windup so schematic and obvious it reduces its crisis-stricken characters to little more than emotional bumper cars.
Read Full Review >Premiere Eric Alt
One of those infuriating films that can't allow this already dramatic situation to fester and develop on its own.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
In the mood for some dead-child entertain ment tonight? Reservation Road has what you're looking for. It's "In the Bedroom" crossed with, um, "Fever Pitch."
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
This is one of those sadistic exercises that puts its characters through the wringer without saying anything true or meaningful.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
A deadly earnest and deadly dull psychological thriller.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.7 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Morgan W. gave it a10:
I think this is one of the best films of 2007. I disagree with those who think that there is no redemption in this story. It rivals films like The Believer in its portrayal of internal conflict, and it is a beautiful (and heartbreaking) study of morality. This film is undoubtedly worth seeing.
Tony B. gave it a5:
What could have and should have been a fine film is not. The main problem here is that the two nominal leads are its weakest links. Joaquin Phoenix is not able for a minute to evoke the sympathy and compassion we should feel for him. Grief is not depicted well when it becomes obsessive. Mark Ruffalo is so obviously the "bad" guy that one wonders if the people around him are in a coma that prevents them from seeing him for what he is. Jennifer Connolly's role should have been more fleshed out, especially since she has a clear grasp of what it is all about.
Trevor D. gave it an8:
Brilliant story line.
Chad S. gave it a6:
There's a small minority out there who felt that Todd Field's award-winning "In the Bedroom" went off the rails in the final act when the father of the dead goes after his son's attacker. Some believe, me included, that the mild-mannered father's pro-active approach towards justice was antithetical to his character, therefore, the ensuing premeditated violence seemed to have come out of the blue. In "Reservation Road", an irate father doesn't take the high road either, but you can see the payback from a mile away, and it might(or might not) be a bitch. "Reservation Road" is not a flawed film. It's a film with flaws, but not fatally so. The performances bear the weight of the many plot contrivances. In particular, Jennifer Connelly, who obliterates her sexpot past in a crying scene motivated by that most heartbreaking of epiphanies-I'm responsible for my child's death. She's not, and as the story progresses, Grace(Connelly) seems to have arrived at that conclusion. But here's the problem. While "Reservation Road" is busy showing us how Ethan(Joaquin Phoenix) reaches a mindset by which Dwight's days are suddenly numbered, the film neglects to detail Grace's inroads to the halfway house of her own making. Grace still mourns her son, but at some undocumented juncture, she stopped blaming herself. Connelly is so good here, you'll wish that "Reservation Road" didn't veer away from her road to recovery. The film takes leave of that bumpy thoroughfare and runs smack dab into another artery, Ethan's artery. When the boy dies, Emma(Elle Fanning) is consoled by her father. She's her father's daughter. Sean(Josh Learner) was his mother's son. Her pain, not his, should always be the focal point of "Reservation Road".
Paul W. gave it a0:
2 hours of the most ridiculous melodrama with no end in sight which becomes progressingly worse after half way. A hit and run tale is a sad one but surely this doesn't justify bludgeoning the audience with overwrought drama scene after scene after scene. While there is practically no story progression to speak of and no development in the 2 dimensional characters, the leaden script makes every bit of acting feel completely overdone. Any sympathy for the characters? forget it, they are merely cardboard soap-personae who don't exist in the real world and who soon become highly annoying as such. Cringeworthy at best, this lackluster storytelling-void will be forgotten soon and rightfully so. Do yourself a favor and see something else
Jay H. gave it a6:
Starts out very promising, but there are too many coincidences and the pace slows. Still, I always found it interesting, even though it is improbable. Well acted.
