Review of The Clearing

It's definitely a wonderfully thoughtful and engrossing film that leaves a very strong imprint on the viewers. Robert Redford, Helen Mirren and Willem Dafoe give three engaging and rewarding performances in this carefully constructed frame. It got nothing of the usual vulgar melodrama and gets to describe the whole situation in a flawlessly realistic way. It was obviously difficult to handle such a dramatic subject showing things happening before, during and after the kidnapping but without taking the risk of being banal. In "The Clearing" they made it, telling the almost not existing American dream (beautiful family, wealth and so on) turning into a living nightmare.