Recycled Love

Reincarnation has often peeked its way out of the suspense thriller genre in its dark unknown foreboding presence that offers more questions than answers, which ultimately leaves one with more desire to plumb the ultimate, “What if?”

In the latest turn of the screw interpretation of life-after-death, we are shown at the beginning a skeptic of the subject succumb to a heart attack during a brisk wintry jog in the placid calm of NYC's Central Park only to flash forward a decade and introduced to that victim's widow, Anna (Kidman). Anna attempts to move on with her life by getting married to another suitor, Joseph (Huston), and settle down for a more comfortable life together.

Enter the picture a mysterious ten-year old boy (Bright, who appears to have cornered the market of supernatural lads since his turn last year in the awful clone horror flick Godsend in a decidedly Osmentian performance) who arrives at Anna's mother's (the grand dame Bacall) stately apartment during a birthday party where he makes his unannounced appearance, leading Anna to ask who he is. Calmly he states he is Sean. The jogging victim, her late husband, Sean.

Anna at first thinks it's a prank and then realizes how deadly serious the boy is and fears it is a sick joke that has gone on too far when he makes another return which leads to Joseph inquiring where is parents are and discovering his father to be a tutor who has a client in the building Anna lives in. There the couple confront Sean's dad (Levine) who is dumbfounded and sternly instructs his son to apologize and promise never to bother her again. Sean denies he will do so leaving Anna in a confused state leading her to disbelief until finally she lets the boy stay with them for short period of time to gain some information from him, all about her dead spouse, uncannily channeled to the smallest detail after an informal grilling from her brother-in-law Bob (Howard) which begins the opening into the belief by Anna that this may very well be her Sean.

Kidman gives another fine performance balancing the slight madness that upsets her barely steady life after the untimely death of the man she truly, deeply loved and conveys an inner sadness that is at the seams blending into a fear of accepting the unbelievable to be true. Bright, with his expressively set eyes and beyond-his-years smart delivery of lines is proving to be a talent to watch. Huston, uncannily sounding like his late father and Hollywood great John, has the more difficult challenge in making Joseph, a seemingly rationale nice guy with shades of grey that surface when Sean enters the picture (including a tell-tale sequence where he finally loses patience with the pint-size problem in practically attacking him at his engagement party). Bacall is the voice of the audience at one point nearly laughing aloud by saying to the cake-eating tyke, "So how is little Mr. Reincarnation enjoying his cake?"

Glazer, who directed the out-of-nowhere needles-and-pins Sexy Beast smartly allows his actors to tackle the subject with some maturity despite the seemingly ludicrous high concept and walks the controversial tightrope of a near-affair between a woman and a child with dexterity thanks to a tight screenplay co-written by Milo Addica (Monster’s Ball) and Jean-Claude Carriere. Harris Savides' exquisite cinematography captures nicely the claustrophobia of the townhouses and the open spaces of New York while the chamber music of Alexandre Desplat's compositions underscore the quiet, deliberate funereal themes.

Grief may never have been so hauntingly realized onscreen as in the film's final scene on a beach in a nearly eerie silence evoking how painful and lonely it really is.