The Best Marisa Tomei Movie Isn't My Cousin Vinny, But Rather, It's One Of The Darkest Movies You'll Ever Watch

I love My Cousin Vinny, but I'm convinced that 2001's In the Bedroom is Marisa Tomei's best movie.

This is coming from somebody who also loves her in The Wrestler, which is one of Darren Aronofsky's best movies. It's just that In the Bedroom is so dark, and so depressing that it's impossible to look away. (Which you want to do, since again, it’s so dark and depressing!)

Based off of the 1979 short story, “Killings” by Andre Dubus, In the Bedroom is about a family who lose their son after he's murdered by his girlfriend's ex-husband. There’s much more to it than just that, but first, I want to talk about Marisa Tomei, who plays the girlfriend in question.

Tomei Gives The Performance Of Her Career In This Drama

When Tomei won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for My Cousin Vinny, people were shocked. In fact, rumors circulated that Jack Palance, who presented the award, announced her name by accident, and that she actually didn’t win. Obviously, this isn’t true (I kind of wish it wasn’t true that Crash beat Brokeback Mountain, but that’s another article), but the rumor persisted for years.

I don’t know why, though, since Tomei’s performance in Vinny is hilarious. That said, I don’t think she has ever given a more potent performance than she did in In the Bedroom, where she plays a single mother named Natalie who is hounded by her jealous ex-husband.

In the film, Tomei finds love with a young college grad named Frank, played by Nick Stahl. Frank’s parents have different feelings about the relationship. His mother, Ruth (Sissy Spacek) is worried for her son, while his father, Matt (Tom Wilkinson), thinks it’s just a fling. Tomei plays Natalie as utterly smitten by Frank, but she’s afraid of her ex, who is becoming increasingly violent.

One fateful day, her ex-husband kills Frank, and Tomei’s character is so distraught that she gives conflicting stories about what happened, which gets her ex-husband off of murder charges. Throughout the movie, Tomei goes from love-struck, to devastated and guilt-ridden. I know she was Academy Award-nominated for this performance, but I honestly think she should have taken home another trophy, because she's so phenomenal in the role.

The Scene Where Richard Kills Frank Is Almost Unbearable To Watch

We once did an article on movie deaths that break our hearts, and I would like to add Frank's death from In the Bedroom to the list, because it's practically unbearable to watch.

Natalie is terrified of her ex-husband, Richard (William Mapother) who came to her house earlier and practically destroyed it. When one of Natalie's children calls Frank, he rushes to the house to console her, but Richard returns and finds a way back inside.

Natalie takes her kids upstairs, and hears a gunshot, to which she races back downstairs only to find Frank shot dead on the kitchen floor, with Richard sitting at the table.

It's such a tense scene, and even more distressing because Frank did everything right. He came because he was called, tried to talk Richard down through the locked door, and still ended up dead, which is punctuated by Tomei's tearful screams. It's some seriously brutal stuff, and a far cry from the hilarity of My Cousin Vinny.

The Quiet Moments Of Grief Are Painful To Sit Through

Here's the thing about this movie. You would think from how I just described it that the film is centered around a single mother, her new beau, and her ex-husband, but it's not. It's actually centered around the slain man's parents, who deal with his death in very different ways.

Tom Wilkinson, who unfortunately passed away in 2023, plays Frank's father, Matt. He feels immense guilt after the death of his son, because he didn't really take what his wife said about his son’s relationship seriously. But, he handles the death quietly, drinking more and not really speaking to his wife about it until one explosive scene where they confront each other.

Sissy Spacek, on the other hand (who came a long way from her performance in 1976's Carrie) has been more outwardly depressed. She's been holding in her grief and hasn't understood how her husband could just go back to work following the death of their son. In that way, both parents are grieving, but they don't know how to express their grief to one another.

The tenseness of what's being left unsaid is palpable. When they do eventually confront each other about how they feel, the release of their silence is almost cathartic. It's like, finally! The waiting for that moment to occur, though, is almost oppressively hard to sit through.

Plus, The Miscarriage Of Legal Justice Is Infuriating To Watch Play Out

Another thing that makes this film so dark is the sometimes unfairness of the legal system, as we know that Richard is guilty of murder and not just manslaughter, but the jury doesn't!

Natalie didn't see her ex-husband murder Frank. She was upstairs with her kids. When the cops arrived, she told them that she saw the murder, only for Richard's lawyers at the trial to get her to admit that she didn't see the murder, but rather, only heard the gunshot, which throws the whole testimony into question.

Of course she feels horrible, since Richard actually gets to walk the streets again until his next trial, and Frank's parents see him out and about. This is beyond maddening, because again, we know Richard murdered Frank on purpose and should rot in prison. But, he doesn't.

As a parent myself, I almost wish this was Mega City One from my favorite comic book movie, Dredd. In that world, cops act as judge, jury, and executioner. In the real world, the legal system can be infuriating. I know this is just a movie, but the fact that lawyers find a way to lessen sentences in the same manner will always make me angry, just as it does in this film.

By The End, You Don't Feel Any Better, Despite Matt's Revenge

So, does Frank's family ever get justice for his death? It really all depends on how you look at the ending. Matt, along with his friend, Willis, kidnap Richard at gunpoint, and Matt makes up some story that he wants Richard to skip bail and leave town so he never has to see him again.

Richard obviously knows that his life's in danger, but he can’t do anything about it. He's forced to drive to a secluded area where Matt shoots him dead because he just couldn't wait any longer. As a father myself, I really can’t blame him.

However, when he gets back home, where his wife fully knew what he intended to do, he feels empty. In fact, he actually feels a sense of guilt after seeing a happy picture of Richard and Natalie in Richard's apartment. It really hammers home the idea that while revenge might fuel you, it doesn't fix what made you vengeful in the first place, which further adds to why this movie’s so dark and hard to watch.

Even though we didn't include In the Bedroom in our top 100 films of the 2000s, I very much think it is one of the best films of that decade, and it’s my pick for Marisa Tomei's best movie (even though I do love her as Aunt May from Spider-Man).

What do you think? Have you watched In the Bedroom? I'd love to hear your thoughts.