SILENT FALL
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Liv Tyler, J. T. Walsh, Ben Faulkner, Linda Hamilton, John Lithgow. Screenplay: Akiva Goldsman. Director: Bruce Beresford.
If you have not already done so, please add to your list of movie cliches the "psychiatrist/psychologist who is as screwed up as anyone he/she is treating." While some might argue (and suicide statistics might support) that this is a case of art imitating life, it is becoming far too predictable to toss a psychiatrist with personal demons into a suspense plot as flavoring; they are the MSG of the psychological thriller. Surely there's a happy, well- adjusted shrink out there somewhere. Well, not in SILENT FALL, and the inclusion of that tired standby is just one of the many, many things wrong with this good-looking but gimmicky thriller.
The psychiatrist is Dr. Jake Rainer (Richard Dreyfuss), an expert in autism who has given up his treatment of children in the wake of a patient's death. He is called in by the local sheriff (J. T. Walsh) when the only witness to the murder of a prominent couple appears to be their autistic son Tim (Ben Faulkner). With the assistance of Tim's sister Sylvie (Liv Tyler), Jake attempts to reconstruct what happened the night of the murders before Tim is turned over to a less compassionate psychiatrist (John Lithgow) for more radical treatment. Their best shot: Tim's uncanny ability to remember and mimic conversations.
I don't think I'm breaking any new ground when I say that Richard Dreyfuss, talented though he may be, is a ham. And if there is anything more unintentionally amusing than watching a ham act, it is watching him try desperately *not* to be a ham. In SILENT FALL, director Bruce Beresford has Dreyfuss wandering around in a daze of what is supposed to be self-pity, but instead looks mostly like a particularly bad Hamlet. In the one scene where Dreyfuss plays Dreyfuss, rattling off multiple voices in an attempt to calm Tim, it's almost a relief. Unfortunately, that is the level at which Beresford has everyone pitch the performances; you only know they're alive because they blink. Linda Hamilton, energetic star of the TERMINATOR films, has the appallingly under-written role of Jake's oh-so-supportive wife, who struggles with dialogue like, "You're the one hiding from the world, Jake." Liv Tyler (daughter of Aerosmith's Steven Tyler in her first major role) is lovely, but lacks any screen presence, and her big emotional scenes are truly laughable. From start to finish, SILENT FALL is just so sluggish that I felt I was being hypnotized.
It's even harder to stay awake once you realize the preposterous story that you are being asked to swallow. First of all, no one from social services ever appears to guard Tim's interests, allowing the sheriff to treat him like a narcotics dog, expected to sniff out the murderer. Tim and Sylvie are allowed to return to their house, disturbing a crime scene of an investigation in progress. Most ridiculous of all is Tim's special talent, and not so much because it's impossible to believe his tape-recorder memory. Rather, it is the mimicked voices dubbed over Tim's lips which cross the line into silliness, and every time they are used they just get sillier.
Of course, a fundamental problem with SILENT FALL is that it's a mystery where everyone seems too stupid to figure out the obvious. Ultimately there are only three suspects in SILENT FALL, and it tips its hand far too soon. What pass for attempts at diverting attention from the only real suspect fail miserably, and SILENT FALL is left to fall back on the developing relationship between Jake and Tim for any drama. While there are moments in that relationship which work quite well, they lead to the film's single most infuriating scene, a miracle cure for Tim at a crucial moment. For a film that wants to appear serious in its treatment of a perplexing medical condition, it traffics in solutions which are far too pat, and acts as a slap in the face to everyone who has ever had to live with autistic individuals by suggesting that all it takes to bring them out of it is just a little more love. And maybe the violent death of one or two family members.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 miracle cures: 2.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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