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Film

Beyond the facade

The bones and sinews of fine acting, not pretty faces, turn The Clearing into gripping suspense that probes the reality beyond what seems to be.

By STEVE PERSALL
Published July 8, 2004

[Photo: 20th Century Fox]

Arnold Mack (Willem Dafoe) leads Wayne Hayes (Robert Redford) into the Pennsylvania woods after kidnapping him in The Clearing. View a clip

The years haven't been kind to Robert Redford's face, although he's kind enough to moviegoers to do nothing about it. That golden boy complexion is age-tarnished, more camera angles are unflattering, and one of the greatest modern movie stars, whose face was his big break, doesn't mind a bit.

The Clearing, his first film in three years, shows the actor excelling in the kind of role he couldn't play until Father Time greenlighted the project. In younger days, Redford was the face of irrepressible success, the guy who couldn't lose. Now he carries the face of someone who has.

Wayne Hayes' career could have been an early Redford role; charismatic, driven and boyishly scheming, amassing a fortune to match his good looks. Now he has sold his shares in a vague company and retired to a luxurious home with an apparently perfect wife, Eileen (Helen Mirren). Yet we sense tension in their waking-up rituals, some unspoken divide in their conversation. Wayne leaves and Eileen, we later learn, is unsure he'll return.

He may not, but for a reason frighteningly different from what she initially thinks. Outside Wayne's driveway lurks Arnold Mack - and nobody lurks like Willem Dafoe - with kidnapping in mind. Arnold takes the victim at gunpoint to a garage for a car switch, then to Pennsylvania woods, hiking to a cabin where mysterious men wait. Meanwhile, Eileen slowly realizes that Wayne's tardiness is foul play. FBI agents move into their mansion seeking clues, prying into personal details that Eileen never knew or preferred to forget.

If Wayne returns safely, Eileen will know him more intimately than ever, for better or worse. Confronted with the growing possibility of death, Wayne also realizes how much Eileen means to him. If he returns safely, he'll never underestimate that again.

Without those three superb actors and a few time-shuffling maneuvers by first-time director Pieter Jan Brugge, The Clearing might be a substandard thriller. Once the film ends, viewers realize how skimpy the plot actually is, and how much we appreciate the director's cinematic camouflage. Brugge doesn't turn time inside-out like Memento but adjusts the clock at those moments when proper chronology would be duller. Justin Haythe's screenplay contains a few solid ideas - Wayne and Arnold's psychological sparring, Eileen's sleuthing, a marital autopsy - that become repetitive.

Yet no matter how many times the principal actors address the same material, they always raise it to a higher level. Redford still works effortlessly, using his ability to convey deep thinking with the slightest facial expression. It's shocking to see him manhandled, a Hollywood icon vandalized.

Mirren is marvelous, also avoiding histrionics to portray a deceived woman coming to grips with her marriage. There's a steely resolve beneath the somber expressions, enough to put on brave faces when necessary and take the investigation into her own hands when confronting a threat to Wayne's fidelity.

Even Dafoe plays a more subdued villain than usual, almost sympathetically. Arnold has his reasons for committing this crime, good ones from his perspective, plus a soft underbelly that makes viewers wonder if he's capable of carrying it off. Brugge's best accomplishment in the Clearing isn't his stealth or style; it's his resistance to giving audiences what they expect.

The Clearing was the first Redford film to play at the Sundance Film Festival he founded a generation ago. Certainly there's an independent-film feel despite its star power; easy locations, dialogue-driven suspense and cautious avoidance of cliches. In a way, it's Redford's way of continuing his support of nonmainstream cinema, using his popularity to draw audiences into something different. The years will be kind to his legacy.

Grade: B

Director: Pieter Jan Brugge

Cast: Robert Redford, Helen Mirren, Willem Dafoe, Alessandro Nivola, Matt Craven, Melissa Sagemiller, Wendy Crewson

Screenplay: Justin Haythe

Rating: R; profanity, brief violence

Running time: 91 min.

[Last modified July 7, 2004, 10:45:41]