Dentro del dolor

This film tells the story of a married couple, whose young son disappeared in a petrol station, right under their noses. They react and grief in very different ways.

The name "Meadowland" doesn't reveal anything away, so the plot remains a secret to be revealed. As the plot unfolds, the vastly diverging journeys of the two adults become very gripping and engaging. What they have to go through is devastating, and I do feel for them. The mother's denial and maladaptive coping is so heart wrenchingly played by Olivia Wilde. She is the true star of the film. The ending is very effective and communicates without words. I'm moved by this story.

The show broke my heart. You would have to be a robot if it didn't break yours. The acting was awesome. The ending was awful. Left everything so disconnected. Dang it.

I suppose the reason most movies are so instantly forgettable is because, like the popcorn we shovel into our mouths distractedly while watching them, most movies are just bland, uninspiring, and only temporarily filling. They take few risks, break no new ground, and therefore leave us as we were when we entered the theater: hungry for something more substantial and memorable. Well, much admired cinematographer Reed Morano's first turn in the Director's chair, the haunting, visceral and formula shattering "Meadowland," which I caught at the Tribeca Film Festival last weekend, is simply unforgettable and searing. It burns its way into your memory, taking you on an ever-escalating trip through the unraveling of the world of parents unable to get any closure over a missing child who vanishes without a trace or clue, leaving the parents frozen in the time of the disappearance, immobilized yet stumbling through the mundane as they spend their days in a daze of incomplete, inchoate grief.

How do you mourn someone who is not dead but simply unaccounted for? In the hands of a less sensitive and brave director and cast, such a story would, at various times, turn melodramatic or maudlin, but Morano and her superb cast, led by Olivia Wilde, stay with the pace at which life honestly moves when grief is the gnawing feeling you wake up with every day. You live, but your life is lifeless, and every day their son stays missing is a little less a day for hope. Wilde gets progressively gaunt and hollowed with the passage of time, and she delivers a disciplined performance of aching realism, never giving in to the temptation to play Sarah broadly or with hand-wringing sympathy. Sarah's husband Phil, played by Luke Wilson in the equally defining role of his film career, is similarly staggered by his son's disappearance but falls down the rabbit hole of loss by a somewhat different route. While Sarah goes from lithium to lethargy, Phil goes for support from a group that includes John Leguizamo, superbly cast against his usual type, but Phil misunderstands the nature of support and loses a friend as he tries to take a shortcut in the twelve steps to rehabilitation. Wilson's eyes rarely show signs of the life he had before his son went missing; even when he is dealing with a domestic dispute with potentially explosive consequences, he seems bored by the banality of daily life even as he urges Sarah to accept the reality of their loss.

Morano clearly loves the actors with whom she works and gets career-defining performances from most of them, especially her two leads. Her dual role as cinematographer never seems to burden her. In fact, it may help to have the person actually behind the camera stand behind her actors. Her visuals are remarkably, even almost shockingly, bright and clear, from Sarah's yellow hoodie she wears when prowling the crowded city streets looking for her son to the clouds that hover over an otherwise dreary landscape of loss. Morano is a force to be reckoned with, and Meadowland is a film that celebrates her skills for story telling and her knack for getting the most out of her stars. Wilde and Wilson have never been better, but one senses Meadowland is just the beginning of even richer and deeper roles for both of them for a very long time. Meadowland is not without problems. The script tends to wander in the third act as if, like Sarah and Phil as they stumble through the fog of grief, not everyone is sure where things are ultimately headed. And let's be clear: this is not a subject matter that begs to be seen in a multiplex on a feel-good night out. But if film is indeed a window into our true selves, then Meadowland succeeds on every level because Morano, Wilde and Wilson are brave enough to tell a story without artifice and resolution. Much as we know, when we are truly honest with ourselves, that we have to live our lives without a story arc with a clear beginning, middle, and end, Meadowland honors the courage it takes just to keep living, especially when those who were so important that they were the center of those lives, cannot.

This film is a good reminder for me to not follow film ratings alone as an indicator of quality when deciding whether or not to watch something.

I'd put this in my Netflix queue and when it came and I sat down to watch I was dismayed by early occurrences. Surely I hadn't decided to order this . . . this genre . . .

I visited the critiques here, was discouraged by the 5.2 rating but trusted the intelligence I encountered here in the reviews and went back and saw that, yes, this IS a good film.

The editing . . . the single shot of Phil where we see for the first time, on the left side of the screen his attire and suddenly know his profession, and at the same time on the right side of the screen, reflected in the car's windshield, what is on the dashboard. In a second, an instant, we know so much more about Phil.

The music is just right and enhances each mood.

It's a well crafted film.

It is very sad.

And it is very good.

If your feeling down in the dumps or there's a gloomy cloud hovering over your head then Meadowland is not the film you'll be wanting to watch, actually it's about as far away as what'd you'd want to be watching as you could imagine as one time D.O.P turned feature length director Reed Morano's film is one of the most dour films to come around in quite some time.

The dour nature that imbeds itself into almost every single scene of this sometimes heart rendering bleak tale of grief, loss and heartache may be too much for some to bare but it's also in many ways Morano's greatest achievement, even though it doesn't make for typically entertaining viewing.

Given a meatier role than she's normally afforded, Olivia Wilde does a commendable job as the lost mother of a missing boy Sarah and alongside the well casted if under used Luke Wilson as her equally lost husband Phil the two actors give Meadowland their all and tackle the hard subject matter with aplomb even though we're sadly as an audience never truly aloud into their characters inner sanctum which hurts the films overall emotional gut punches.

Morano, as is the case with most first time directors, unfortunately fails to properly engage the audience into the films overall heart and soul and characters like Giovanni Ribisi's underused Tim and the odd appearance of Juno Temple's seductress like Mackenzie seem like missed opportunities while Sarah's odd feelings towards mentally handicapped school student Adam never really ring true especially towards the films last act and the film is undoubtedly at its strongest when the narrative focus's more intently on the plight of Sarah and Phil as they consider what may've become of their lost son and how they deal with the pain alongside each other.

Sometimes powerful, often frustrating and always from the get go grey cloud gloomy, Meadowland is an impressive first up effort by Morano and features committed turns by the normally misused Olivia Wilde and sometimes auto piloted Luke Wilson that make it a film worthy of your time as long as you're willing to go along with its depressive nature.

3 stale car snacks out of 5