Amidst the craziness that is the Sundance Film Festival, I managed to squeeze in a showing of last year's buzz-flick, In the Bedroom. After watching it, one thing became certain--Director Todd Field (who you may remember as Tom Cruise's piano-playing buddy in Eyes Wide Shut) is a major talent.

In the Bedroom is an incredibly complex, and unbelievably insightful look into how a tragedy tears a family apart at the seams, forcing them to re-evaluate their own relationships with one another. Trying to figure out where this story is headed is virtually impossible, and the picture is comprised of one brutal confession after another. Sissy Spacek has garnered much deserved praise for her performance as an abrasive housewife and mother. It is, however, the other performances in the picture that really blew me away.

Tom Wilkinson is outstanding as Spacek's low-key and closed-off husband. Nick Stahl is a revelation as their loving son. And Marisa Tomei gives the performance of her career as a good woman trying to get out of a bad situation. Todd Field's screenplay is so rich in character development and so honest in it's unflinching dialogue, that you will feel as if you are watching these people's lives unfold before your very eyes.

Every moment I thought I knew where this video was headed, I found that I was wrong. The story would then take an unexpected turn. I must confess, however, that one moment towards the film's end, left me cold. It felt out of character and I felt that it disrupted the flow of the film. Still, this is a provocative motion picture and has no interest in taking an easy way out. If The Lord of the Rings is the year's best big-budget blockbuster, then In the Bedroom is it's independent counterpart. An intense, beautifully shot piece of haunting cinema, In The Bedroom soars deeply thanks to great writing, stellar acting and a spectacular directing debut.