Too human to be a monster

“I am not a monster,” the man says. It’s not a statement, it’s a challenge, delivered with the knowledge that everyone who knows his story will think he is.

His name is Walter, and he’s introduced at the beginning of “The Woodsman” as he starts supervised parole after 12 years in prison. We see him move into an apartment, reacquire his old job at a lumberyard and get reacquainted with family, the usual things for someone returning to society.

But Walter (exceptionally played by Kevin Bacon) is not the standard returnee. He is a convicted pedophile, put away for sexual offenses with preadolescent girls. He’s not someone misunderstood or arrested by mistake, as he might have been in a Hollywood version of this story. He is the real deal.

It is the ambition of “The Woodsman” to take us inside the mind and experience of someone like Walter. It does not flinch from who he is, in no way shape or form makes excuses for him, but at the same time it absolutely insists on Walter’s humanity, and with good reason. If we are to have any kind of success in dealing with this horror, we must understand that it is not monsters who do it, it is people.

This is quite a challenge for a first-time filmmaker like director Nicole Kassell, but “The Woodsman” by and large meets it successfully. There are some weak moments as well as sections in which the film’s theatrical origins (Kassell co-wrote the screenplay with playwright Steven Fechter) are too visible. But the film’s core, anchored by a fine ensemble cast and a controlled, focused performance by Bacon, is completely solid.

Closed off and deeply self-protective, Bacon’s withdrawn Walter keeps his personal reactions minimal, as if he knows (as in fact he mostly does) what the world has in store for him once it unmasks his secret.

More than that, Bacon brings to life Walter’s sense of being trapped in his own life, of being troubled on the most profound level by who he is, by his fears that he cannot be otherwise. Desperate to be cured, he asks his therapist, and more than once, the question no one can answer: “When will I be normal?”

One of the challenges of playing Walter is to do it with the exactness the conception demands, to unerringly walk the line between unpalatable and palatable, to show a man fighting with himself and being terribly unsure which side will win. But Bacon, displaying the commitment essential to taking this part on, has a powerful hold on the role and refuses to let go.

“The Woodsman” is structured as a series of one-on-one contacts Walter has with the people in his life. Some are more successful than others, with his relationship with Vickie (Kyra Sedgwick) being the strongest of the lot.

A tough-talking fellow lumberyard worker who takes no guff from anyone, Vickie is attracted to Walter for reasons she can’t put her finger on. “I used to think you were shy. Now I think it’s something else,” she says. “Something happened to you.”

Sedgwick and Bacon are married in real life, which is not necessarily an advantage in playing a couple on-screen, but it works to the film’s advantage here. Sedgwick gives one of her best, most relaxed performances, and a kind of innate intimacy can be felt between them that makes their relationship credible.

Equally convincing are rap star Eve as a lumberyard secretary and Mos Def as Sgt. Lucas, a plainclothes policeman who is definitely not in Walter’s corner. Called upon to work without any rehearsal time, Def gives a wonderfully insinuating performance as a tormentor whose psychological jabs you never quite see coming.

Some of “The Woodsman’s” other aspects are easier to predict and less effective for it. Benjamin Bratt’s role as Walter’s brother-in-law, the only member of his family willing to talk to him, seems like a construct as much as a character, and the same goes for the working out of the subplot involving a fellow molester Walter observes from his apartment window.

But for every element in “Woodsman” that comes off as too schematic, there is another that is impeccable. Though the Little Red Riding Hood coat her character wears is a bit much, Hannah Pilkes is heartstoppingly good as an 11-year-old girl named Robin whom Walter meets. The scenes between these two caused a rare audible gasp when “The Woodsman” premiered before the usually unflappable Sundance Film Festival audience. It’s likely to do the same wherever this uncompromising venture takes the screen.

*

‘The Woodsman’

MPAA rating: R for sexuality, disturbing behavior and language

Times guidelines: Mature subject matter and dialogue, graphic scenes of adult sex

Kevin Bacon...Walter

Kyra Sedgwick...Vickie

Mos Def...Sgt. Lucas

Benjamin Bratt...Carlos

David Alan Grier...Bob

Eve...Mary-Kay

Hannah Pilkes...Robin

Released by Newmarket Films. Director Nicole Kassell. Producer Lee Daniels. Executive producers Kevin Bacon, Damon Dash, Brook Lenfest, Dawn Lenfest. Screenplay Steven Fechter & Nicole Kassell, based on the play by Steven Fechter. Cinematographer Xavier Perez Grobet. Editors Lisa Fruchtman, Brian A. Kates. Costumes Frank L. Fleming. Music Nathan Larson. Production design Stephen Beatrice. Running time: 1 hour, 28 minutes.

In limited release.