Evaluative Essay: Killings & In The Bedroom

By Brian Webber

Both the story and the film are as much about loss as anything else. But who lost the most of all the characters in this film? The obvious answer is Matt & Ruth Fowler. They lost their son, Frank, when Richard shot him in the face (both versions) and chest (story version). Overall the clearest loser in the story and the film (though arguably less so in the story, but I digress) is Mary Ann/Natalie.

How so? At the risk of sounding cold, it’s a numbers game. Matt & Ruth losing their son, and his killer still walking around is a double whammy no question, but let’s look at this from the point of view of the other major female character of the story (using both the film and the story to make my case):

First, a man she clearly loved is murdered. That’s one emotional hit.

Her children witness it. That’s two.

She has to live with the knowledge that she was married to a killer. Three.

When Frank dies, she loses touch with his parents, so in effect she’s lost them too. Four.

As far as she knows, Richard has escaped justice by jumping bail and fleeing. That has to hurt. Five.

In the movie, she slips up while talking to the cops. I’m sure in her mind she believed she did see the shot (she certainly saw it’s aftermath), but when it comes out in court that she only heard it, she feels guilty that Richard got bail. Six.

All of this of course is debatable. In fact many watching the film or reading the story are quick to blame Mary Ann/Natalie for everything that happens, from Frank’s death, to Matt’s being pressured into committing an act that goes against everything we the reader/viewer are certain he believes in. Often cited as evidence for this are the fact that she got involved with Frank before her divorce was final, and that she didn’t call the cops after the first time Richard had assaulted Frank.

That latter point is a fair one, but it is ignoring something that is perhaps far too common in human nature; the desire not to quote-unquote blow things out of proportion. But my biggest gripe is with the first one. To them I say, uh, hello? Are you at all familiar with the real world? This is not a freak occurrence. People in the middle of divorces start seeing other people. Women get involved with younger men. She was an adult, and so was Frank. You know who you should blame for the death of Frank? Richard. It’s stunningly obvious don’t you think? Frankly, Roger Ebert said it best in his review for the film that Natalie “is wiser than her young lover, and protective toward him, because she understands better than he does the problems they face.”

If that seems a bit bitter, that’s probably because it is. For two very good reasons. One, my Mom married a younger guy after the divorce from my father was final. No one got shot there. Nobody in my family even likes guns. Two, I’ve known women like Mary Ann/Natalie in my life. As friends, and as, well, love interests. So it’s easier for me than for most to sympathize with her character.

But ignoring all that, from an empirical, mathematical stand point, Mary Ann/Natalie suffered the most loss, in either version of this story.