Dir.
David Cronenberg, 2005, USA, 96 mins
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris, William Hurt
The first ten minutes of A History of Violence is a rather strange experience. Once past the suitably cold violence of the credits sequence, a seemingly conventional tale of a wholesome, loving family begins to unfold. Waking from a nightmare, an impossibly sweet young girl is comforted by her family, who rally round to reassure her the monsters she fears from her dreams are not a threat in her waking life. There is an unpredicted warmth and affability to this scene that verges on cliché, quite unlike anything Cronenberg fans have come to expect. Such sweet natured family values are not long lived however, as while the monsters feared by the young girl may not be lurking under her bed, it soon becomes apparent that they do exist disquietingly close to home.
Tom Stall (Mortensen) appears to have it all, a loving wife, Edie (Bello), two children and a good business. But his perfect life is violently shattered one night when two criminals attempt to rob his diner. Protecting both his business and the lives of the others in the diner, Tom kills the two criminals, and is swiftly hailed as a small-town hero. Apparently uncomfortable with his heroic celebrity status, he becomes increasingly concerned when a mysterious man (Harris) arrives on the scene and claims Tom may not be the caring man his family believe him to be.
Even at its most affecting, the cinema of David Cronenberg can rarely be described as emotionally accessible. While the more human dramas of Dead Ringers (1988) or Spider (2002) are often deeply moving, the characters that inhabit these films are perhaps too perverse for mainstream audiences to empathise with, while the films are laced with an inescapable sterility that is undeniably distancing. Here, however, the film's central protagonists are easily the most 'human' Cronenberg has yet depicted. Helped greatly by the natural and subtle performances of Mortensen and Bello, the purveyor of abject horror has made his most radical move for some time by creating characters that are genuinely likeable and full of convincingly traditional emotion. But thankfully, while this flirtation with the more conventional side of the human psyche may attract a larger audience, A History of Violence is deceptive in its initial set-up, and Tom soon undergoes a personal transformation perfectly in keeping with the director's previous work.
As Tom's past comes back to haunt him, the tone of the film shifts dramatically from a family centred drama to a testosterone-fuelled action piece, and the basis of the story becomes progressively more apparent. Based on a graphic novel of the same name, there is an increasing unreality to Tom's situation, as well as an escalating violence, that reminds one of the pulpy comic book nature of the story's first manifestation. But with the futile and contradictory nature of violence a constant theme throughout, the carnage is never without a grounding sense of morality, even when Cronenberg reminds us of his body-horror roots with a grotesque close-up on a battered face or obliterated skull.
From the very start, Cronenberg's films have dealt with the destructive or monstrous potential dormant in us all, whether it be the violent sexual desire of Shivers (1974) or the technological terrorism of Videodrome (1982). While more mainstream in its storytelling, A History of Violence is essentially no different to these low-budget shockers, and no less savage in its deconstruction of identity. The atypically approachable characters may result in a more enjoyable experience than one may expect, yet there is an endless depth of emotion, and a multifaceted examination on the implications of violence that is anything but straightforward. There is far more to this 'perfect' family than is immediately perceptible, and like the characters learnt in Cronenberg's underrated M. Butterfly (1993), appearances can be deceiving.
Michael Blyth
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