THE PLEDGE
US, 2002, 124 minutes, Colour.
Jack Nicholson, Robin Wright Penn, Aaron Eckhart, Benicio del Toro, Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave, Patricia Clarkson, Mickey Rourke, Harry Dean Stanton, Sam Shepard.
Directed by Sean Penn.
This is a powerful and disturbing film.
Sean Penn has proven to be one of Hollywood's most talented actors. Many will remember his convict helped by Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking. He is also a talented director with an eye to very serious and 'uncommercial' stories. A previous film was The Crossing Guard about a minder of children's school crossings whose daughter is killed by a hit-run driver whose marriage collapses and who becomes obsessed with revenge when the driver is released from prison. It was a sombre and powerful film starring Jack Nicholson.
Penn uses Jack Nicholson in The Pledge. It is almost a one-man show so strongly does Nicholson dominate the film. (Many predicted that he would win the Best Actor award at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival - but he didn't.) The cast has a star list of cameo roles including an unrecognisable Benicio del Toro as an Indian charged with murder, Vanessa Redgrave as the grandmother of a victim and Helen Mirren as a psychologist.
While the film is a police investigation into a series of child abuse murders, it is also a drama of a man obsessed with bringing a criminal to justice, a personal pledge made to a distraught mother. Nicholson plays a detective who, on the day of his retirement, helps with the investigation and makes the pledge. In his retirement, he devotes himself completely to fulfilling his pledge. It leads him to tracking suspicious characters, making mistakes in identifying the killer. He buys a store to stay near the assumed killer, gives refuge to a young woman and her son but exposes them to danger.
One of the difficulties for audiences watching the film is the them of child abuse and violence. This is a topic in the headlines every second day and the media inundate readers with horrifying stories. Emotional responses have led to riots on British estates, campaigns to name and shame perpetrators, pleas for stronger legislation to punish offenders. But, in watching a film like The Pledge, audiences are given the opportunity to go a little deeper into the theme. The film opens with a brutal assault and murder which may be too difficult for some audiences to look at. But this is a serious portrayal of a horrific subject.
The film is based on a play by German Swiss author, Frederick Durrenmatt. This grim Germanic story is adapted from the Alps to the Rockies. But it also transfers a German pessimistic tone to the characters and events. This is especially true of the ending (which is actually shown to us at the beginning though we do not realise it until the end). American films are usually upbeat with a neat solution to everything. Penn has decided to stay with the pessimism and the uncertainty. Perhaps this is the reason why the film is admired by critics but did not do great business with the public. It is a film for those who want something meaty, well written, acted and directed.
1. The impact of the film as drama? Portrait of character? The skill and work of Sean Penn as director?
2. The Germanic origins of the story, their being transplanted to a Nevada setting? European sensibility in an American context? The themes of the village, people and interactions, violence and abuse?
3. The structure of the film: the opening with Jerry madly talking to himself, the birds? The reprisal of this sequence at the end and all that had happened to Jerry in between? Jerry as a good man, wanting to do his best, giving a pledge, yet fate depriving him of knowing the truth and achieving the fulfilment of the pledge? The pessimism of the ending?
4. The title, Jerry's promise, the dead girl's mother and her oath, the cross made by her daughter, Jerry swearing on his own salvation - and the irony of achieving some salvation but not knowing it and condemning himself?
5. The range of locations, the snow-clad mountains, the fishing lake, cities and towns, the roads, the gas stations? The range of the seasons? The musical score and its moods?
6. Jerry and his skills as a policeman, his retirement and farewell party, Stan and his support, Eric and the affirmation? The party, the ticket to go fishing? The information coming in about the murder, Jerry wanting to go? Observing the murder site, helping Stan, advising about saving the buttons? The issue of who would tell the parents? The police unwilling? Jerry going, meeting the parents surrounded by so many turkeys? At the table, his breaking the news, the anger of the father and wanting to see his daughter, Jerry's advising that it was hard for him to look at her and so for the father to wait? The intensity of the mother, her making Jerry pronounce the promise on his own salvation and on the cross?
7. The intercutting of the mountain scene, the boy on the snow bike, breaking down, watching the Indian running away, getting into his truck, going through the snow, discovering the body? His later being a witness? Jerry seeing him a year later at the Fourth of July parade?
8. Stan and his role in the police force, his ambitions? Admiration for Jerry? His plan for a confession, taking the Indian? The interrogation and its being videoed? Acting as a friend, getting the Indian to rely on him, suggesting what had happened, persuading him that he had done the crime and for him to confess? The Indian, his criminal background, his being in jail, his mental deficiency? His not understanding the questions? His thinking about the previous crime? Stan persuading him to confess? Stan's boasting at getting the confession, Jerry suspicious that this was not a confession? The Indian being taken out, the gunshot, getting the policeman's gun, killing himself? The dramatic impact at this stage of the film with the crime, the mystery, Jerry's retirement, the pledge?
9. Jerry at the airport, his watching the plane, not going? Seeing Stan, asking for the information? His superiors thinking that he was being affected by retirement crisis and advising him to go to a psychiatrist? His establishing the pattern of where the killings happened, interviewing various people, especially Mickey Rourke as the father of the girl who disappeared? The information that he was building up, the pattern of the crimes, the psychology? Eric not persuaded?
10. The visit to the first victim's grandmother, discussing the little girl with her, getting a feeling for the children, the Hans Christian Andersen fairy story about the angel (and the aerial shot over the location of the death)? The irony of the shop-owner below, the chocolates - and her son being the killer?
11. Betsy Pike and the little girl's drawing, the porcupines, the giant, the car? These themes recurring later with Jenny, the magician and her keeping secrets from her mother - but not from Jerry because he was not her parent?
12. Jerry going on holidays, fishing, discovering the service station, making an offer to buy it? The owner and his daughter, their reluctance, change of heart, going to Arizona? Buying, setting it up, going fishing? Going to the hotel, the friendship with Lori? Playing darts, snooker? Looking for furniture? Settling into his new life, serving the customers? Trouble with the credit cards? The humane touch - and yet his being perennially on the lookout for signs of the killer?
13. His watching? Cars and suspicions? Going to see the woman with the son who was the driver and yet the minister at the chapel? His seeming to fit the picture of the killer? Driving the truck? The friendship with Jenny, inviting her to go to church? Jerry's return and finding that she had gone? His driving madly to get there? His imagining the worst - and then seeing the minister and being welcomed into the church?
14. His visit to the psychiatrist, wanting her opinion on the drawings? Her making a hypothesis about the significance of the giant and the gifts? Her turning the tables and asking him about his own psyche, retirement, sexual activity, drinking? The effect of the interview?
15. The growing friendship with Lori? Love for her daughter? The audience seeing the potential of the abuser and killer in Jerry himself because of the psychiatrist's suggestions? The outings together, the balloon, the sail (? or sale?) and Jenny disappearing for a moment? Lori's upset? Lori and discussions, friendship? Her husband beating her, taking refuge with Jerry? His inviting them in? Reading the stories and being a father to Jenny? The affair with Lori?
16. The build-up to the climax: Jenny and her stories, the magician and the secret confided in Jerry? Allowing her to go by herself - and Lori's later anger, feeling that she had been used and abused, leaving him? His persuading Stan to send a troop to watch? Their finally giving up, warning Lori? The irony of their passing the accident on the way back? Their dismissal of Jerry and his hypotheses, condemning him as a person, as a drunk?
17. The build-up to Jenny's meeting the magician: the car, speeding along the road, the trucks? Audience reaction to the ambush being called off? The irony of the accident and the death of the killer? The scene with his mother worrying about the chocolates and his taking them? The man killed in the car crash - and the visual inferno with his skeleton and its hellish overtones?
18. The pathos and irony of the ending with Jerry having deteriorated, a sense of failure - and yet he was absolutely correct? The strength and power of Jack Nicholson's performance as Jerry?
