In the Bedroom—the highly-acclaimed 2011 film based on a short story by Andre Dubus and starring Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek—ends with an aerial view of the New England town of Camden. The houses, church spires, diners and docks that once seemed idyllic grow smaller as the camera pulls back to reveal the woods and ocean that surround and isolate the town. The film is a gradual revealing of that community’s failure in justice and reconciliation and its characters’ failures in accounting for the woods that surround them.

After their son’s affair with an older woman results in his murder, Dr. Fowler (Wilkinson) and his wife Ruth (Spacek) are confronted by their community’s futile attempts at reconciliation. The town’s court is unable to secure the justice the Fowler’s seek. The local priest’s vague attempts at comfort are hollow and half-hearted. Dr. Fowler’s circle of friends provide little more than lines of poetry and empty air. Even a weekend spent with their best friends is marked by evasion or the noise of incessant conversation.

The community’s attempts to grieve are insufficient. So, too, are the Fowler’s own efforts at reconciliation. Dr. Fowler buries himself in his work, while Ruth surrounds herself with the haze of cigarette smoke and the sound of television. Their separate confrontations with Natalie, the killer’s wife, reveal their differing approaches to grief. Dr. Fowler tries to reach out and reintegrate himself into the community, but is restrained by his fear and passivity. His awkward attempt to seek reconciliation with Natalie is cut off by his own desire for her. Ruth prefers to wallow in her anger and bitterness. When Natalie tries to approach Ruth, the older woman responds with angry violence, isolating herself in the artificial soundtrack of her work with the community choir.

In their conversations with each other, the couple circle but seldom touch the silence of their grief. Perhaps they are afraid of their own anger and their guilt over the way they raised their son, which is the source of so much of this grief. Eventually their silence explodes into confrontation. A sort of reconciliation follows, but it is not reconciliation into their greater community. Rather, by reconciling himself to his wife, Dr. Fowler has resigned himself to her way of solitude and self-righteousness.

To do away with his son’s killer, Dr. Fowler leaves the lights of his community and enters the dark woods that surround it. Until now, the ocean around the town has been treated as a commodity by the community and has been depicted by the camera straightforwardly. When the revenge murder begins, the film’s style changes. Nature takes on a mystical, haunted quality. The victim’s face, reflected in a rearview mirror, floats against an eerily moving background of dark woods. A pale moon dances through the trees and hovers over the dark sea waters. The harsh red lamp of the bridge reflects on the faces of Dr. Fowler and his friend-cum-accomplice, while the bridge keeper works the misty waters like a watchman over a city gate. Dr. Fowler has left the community behind and now dwells on the threshold of life and death.

This imagery continues even when Dr. Fowler arrives back home, the killing complete. His house feels different in predawn light, with the wind disturbing the window’s white drapes. He strips off his clothes and desperately tries to wash himself clean of the mud and guilt. But he cannot baptize himself. He collapses into his bed, curling away from his wife and into the fetal position. His act seems to have freed her. She smokes and chats cheerfully, leaving him to go prepare breakfast. Yet when she leaves the bedroom, he remains shrouded in the smoke of her cigarette and is kept from the peace of sleep. The film ends with Dr. Foster isolated and alone.