73. Eye of God

Viewers acquainted with Tim Blake Nelson only from his comic hayseed roles may be surprised by the dramatic intensity of the films he’s written and directed, particularly this one -- his first, much too briefly released to theatres in 1997.  On the most rudimentary level it’s a stark domestic drama set in a small, economically depressed Oklahoma town -- a bleak dustbowl tragedy about a young woman (Martha Plimpton) who marries a born-again, deceptively mild-mannered ex-con (Kevin Anderson) in a match that ends in devastating violence. Intercut with this narrative is another, involving a troubled fourteen-year-old boy (Nick Stahl) whose mother committed suicide. He’s discovered by the local police wandering the streets dazed and bloody, and the chief (Hal Holbrook), a man whose faith has been shaken by sad experience, patiently works to draw information from him.

Nelson dramatizes these conjoined plot threads in a deliberate, beautifully naturalistic style, drawing superb performances from his entire cast, and he deepens the mood of fatalistic foreboding by tinkering with chronology, mixing past and present in a fashion that suggests God’s omniscience. (It’s essentially the same device employed in 21 Grams, but that film received much greater attention for it.)  And while the picture deals with brutal acts, Nelson handles them very discreetly -- indeed, an instance of spousal abuse is shocking simply because its ferocity is so unexpected. Eye of God is a remarkable film: though the imagery is occasionally heavy-handed, Nelson’s approach -- both imaginative and austere -- transforms what might have been a soap opera into a profoundly moving meditation on the implications of divine providence, asking in an emotionally resonant way the ancient question of how, in a world ruled by a beneficent deity, cruelty and suffering are possible. (Frank Swietek)