Don't read if you don't want to hear about A History of Violence!

It would be nearly impossible to walk away from David Cronenberg’s compelling new movie A History of Violence without an immediate, visceral reaction. Mine (shocker) was one of disquietude. As the title clearly suggests, the movie pivots around the saga of an ex-crime family thug from Philadelphia (Viggo Mortensen) to explore the ubiquity of violence. Not content to focus exclusively on-although by no means neglectful of-traditional physical violence, Cronenberg incorporates sexual, psychological, and spiritual brutality in this film that never fails to disturb.

Rarely in popular film has such graphic violence persisted throughout a movie, and almost never has the sense of glamorization or dramatization been stripped away to offer a raw glimpse of the aftermath. Music and background noise either disappear or diminish to imperceptibility while the camera unflinchingly captures a bloodied human head with half the jaw utterly torn away compliments of a shotgun. You see maniacal looks, punishing sex, and rampant bloodshed. It’s cold, it’s gruesome, and it’s realistic.

But this wasn’t the kind of violence that made you want to play hero or take a quaff of the tantalizing criminal hedonism. This movie repelled and sobered you, and made you want to vomit. It made you want to call your family just to check in. It made you feel vulnerable, and it made you see others as vulnerable.

Although based on a graphic novel, a genre that always includes elements of exaggeration, the movie verges too close to reality-albeit a distorted, tormented reality-for the viewer to dismiss it as irrelevant. Instead, it’s the underlying truth of the work and revelation of human complexity that makes this film surpass such forgettable caricature.

Many whom I've spoken to since watching the movie found the violence gratuitous. I have to respectfully disagree, however, because I think this violence-all of it-served a point. It reminds us that while we’re capable of creating works of profound beauty, we’re also capable of haunting destruction. The juxtaposition of such antithetical traits, and the denial of a simpler, less convincing reality, makes the film work. In my opinion, instead of neglecting such troubling possibilities, we need films like this to agitate us into maintaining an enlightened sense of humanity.