Cady's Take:

In "The Woodsman", Kevin Bacon plays Walter, who has just been released from prison after serving 12 years for molesting young girls. This film gives us a new experience in film viewing. How many times have you ever seen a reformed pedophile as the protagonist of a film?

Bacon creates a real person in Walter, with whom we are somehow able to identify with. He enables us to feel surprisingly sympathetic for his character, which is extremely difficult considering he is a confessed pedophile.

The Woodsman is deeply insightful and brilliantly acted. Most surprising to me was Mos Def who shows himself to be a sly, smart character actor. He absolutely owns his brief scenes as the mournful detective assigned to this case. Kyra Sedgewick also does well as the tough-talking beauty and loner with whom Walter gets romantically involved. But, without a doubt, Mr. Bacon's performance is the stuff of Oscar nominations.

The film's title suggests that Walter is both the Woodsman who saves Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf eager to swallow her up as displayed in one of the most powerful scenes I have ever seen, where Walter follows a girl in a red jacket into the park and starts a conversation with her. Simply magnificent!

There were a couple elements of the film that I found difficult to swallow, one being the fact that Walter gets an apartment located directly across the street from an elementary school, which I doubt any real-life parole board would tolerate. But nevertheless this is a quality movie.

How does one review a movie that is mainly about one man's struggle with his pedophilia? Can I honestly say that this was a "good" movie or that I "enjoyed" it? I do not think I can. However I did enjoy "The Woodsman" because it presented a difficult situation in a compelling fashion, without any of the usual hidden (or blatant) scripted morality. This movie simply watches its characters, waiting to see what they are going to do next, without judging or asking us to judge.

Kevin Bacon, who is one of the most underrated actors of his generation as far as I am concerned, plays Walter, a pedophile recently released from prison. Walter seems determined to make it on the outside, and sees himself with unflinching honesty. He knows that he is attracted to young girls. He knows that it is illegal, and he knows that it is wrong. When he claims he never hurt any of them, he is probably more disbelieving than we are. Walter meets Vickie (Kyra Sedgwick) at work and they begin a relationship. When she learns about his past she thinks about it, digests it, and then cautiously creeps back into Walter's life. She sees the other parts of him, the parts that don't have anything to do with his sexual proclivities. And when we learn a little bit more about Vickie, we understand a bit why she would stay with someone with a past like Walter's.

I think it is really easy to make a "movie" pedophile match the image of "pedophile" we all carry around in our heads: evil, lurking, stalking, dangerous. And I am sure there are many of them out there just like that. But I think it's useful to know that there are others who struggle, who wish they could be "normal", who spend their days trying to figure out why they are the way they are. "The Woodsman" isn't about value judgments, although it in no way condones pedophiliac behavior. It is simply the story of one man and how he battles his inner demons.