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BY MAGGIE SCOTT

A fatal accident tears apart the lives of two very different fathers, and their disparate handling of the tragedy plays out to wrenching effect in the eyes of the leading men of “Reservation Road.”

Director (Hotel Rwanda) Terry George lets the searing eyes of Joaquin Phoenix and the haunting eyes of Mark Ruffalo convey the chaotic, desperate journeys through rage, revenge, panic and despair the men experience as they face profound loss.

A young boy releasing fireflies by the side of a dark road is struck and killed by a hurried and distracted driver who does not stop. With his miserable life flashing before his eyes, Dwight Arno (Ruffalo), a low level lawyer trying to get his son back from a Red Sox game to the home of a disapproving ex-wife (Mira Sorvino), runs off the rutted road his life has taken since his divorce.

Dwight hears the jail cell door closing; sees his son disappearing forever from his life; feels his son’s hate when he has to live with his father’s deed. Dwight cannot turn himself in, and he begins the white knuckle, sweat-drenched life of a fugitive from the truth and its consequences.

Meanwhile, college professor Ethan Learner (Phoenix) and his wife Emma (Jennifer Connelly) are barely coping with their feelings of anguish and fury. As the investigation stalls, Ethan realizes the police will “back burner” the case. He begins spending hours on line searching for support from other hit-and-run death parents; seeking answers and a plan to bring the murderer of his son to justice.

The obsession starts to drive a wedge between Ethan and Emma. And, then, fate brings Ethan face-to-face with the person who left his son crumpled on the pavement.

One day, Dwight walks into his law firm’s conference room to see Ethan sitting there. He has come to get legal help. The noose tightens—for both men. Dwight begins drinking heavily and jogging compulsively; Ethan launches his own investigation; and even as Dwight tries to avoid Ethan’s calls asking about progress on the case, their paths continue to cross.

Dwight’s ex-wife is a music teacher who knew Ethan’s son and who has offered to teach piano to Ethan’s daughter. One dark night at a school event while both sets of parents gather their children on the parking lot, Ethan recognizes Dwight as the man in the SUV whose sickening thud and swerving flight down the blackened road Ethan cannot erase from his mind.

With a minor detour into sensationalism, this gripping adaptation of the John Burnham Schwartz novel never loses traction in its portrayal of a loser “stepping up and being a man.”

A Focus Features release, rated R for language, disturbing images.
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