Many previous reviewers have done an excellent job of enumerating this movie's many fine points; the performances, the writing and the overall tone are all universally excellent. However, I believe many have failed to give proper consideration to the one point that is crucial to any discussion of what happened in this film, and that is that no one actually knows what happened. There were no witnesses to the actual incident. Was there a struggle? Was it an accident? Was it really a murder that legally and morally justified the ultimate punishment? That is the real ambiguity of the film.
*Possible Spoilers*
Revenge was ultimately taken, but was it truly justified? Was the original incident heat-of-the-moment manslaughter, or murder, calculated and cold-blooded as the second incident most certainly was? All the Fowlers knew was that their only child, gifted and so full of promise, was dead. Their pain was visceral and the man who apparently pulled the trigger fit the profile of someone who should be punished; violent, crude, and lower class. One can only wonder if over time as the pain recedes and their own swiftly buried guilts about not having more children or not doing enough to stop Frank's connection to an older woman with baggage come bubbling up to the surface, that these same questions will also start to occur to them. Most certainly they will to the introspective Matt Fowler, and maybe even to the bitter Ruth. The film leaves us to speculate on this and how their answers will color the rest of their days. A truly thoughtful film.
*Possible Spoilers*
Revenge was ultimately taken, but was it truly justified? Was the original incident heat-of-the-moment manslaughter, or murder, calculated and cold-blooded as the second incident most certainly was? All the Fowlers knew was that their only child, gifted and so full of promise, was dead. Their pain was visceral and the man who apparently pulled the trigger fit the profile of someone who should be punished; violent, crude, and lower class. One can only wonder if over time as the pain recedes and their own swiftly buried guilts about not having more children or not doing enough to stop Frank's connection to an older woman with baggage come bubbling up to the surface, that these same questions will also start to occur to them. Most certainly they will to the introspective Matt Fowler, and maybe even to the bitter Ruth. The film leaves us to speculate on this and how their answers will color the rest of their days. A truly thoughtful film.