Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, and Jennifer Connelly. Rated PG. Opens Friday, October 26, at the Cinemark Tinseltown

There is a question at the centre of Reservation Road, a painfully serious film about two Connecticut fathers, one of whom causes the death of the other's child in a hit-and-run. Any audience knows that with this equation of tragedy, anger, and guilt, it's only a matter of time before the two men will have some sort of violent confrontation. That leaves a question: when? (How it will unfold is given away in a series of contrivances that sorely test patience and plausibility.) But that isn't really the question.

As the film's self-conscious misery unfolds, college professor Ethan Learner (Joaquin Phoenix) faces life with only one child (Elle Fanning) instead of two, while the driver of the killer SUV (you were expecting maybe a Smart car?), lawyer Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo), can't turn himself in. So here's the burning question: what the fuck is wrong with this guy?

From our first view of the Learners (Jennifer Connelly, required to collapse into a fetal curl of incalculable grief, plays wife Grace), attending an outdoor school concert in a scene so idyllic it needs a squirrel holding up a sign reading "Something bad is about to happen", writer-director Terry George (Hotel Rwanda) sets the families in clunky opposition. Although the aforementioned exude class and culture, Dwight and ex-wife Ruth (Mira Sorvino, in a thankless role) are barely past the hurling-objects stage. His idea of bonding with son Lucas (Eddie Alderson) is takeout pizza and Red Sox games at his rat-hole house. He doesn't even notice when his kid's seat belt is unfastened.

Okay, so the agony of divorce has turned Dwight into a screwup. But, as a fellow lawyer wonders, why is he also an idiot? If it's difficult to believe he's a lawyer, it's incomprehensible here's one of the contrivances that Ethan would hire mumbling, glassy-eyed Dwight when the police investigation stalls.

Ultimately, Reservation Road, adapted from John Burnham Schwartz's novel, is about men. The men struggle with grief, self-loathing, anger, and late-night Google searches, while Connolly's patronized character moves on, giving her dead child's chess sets and telescopes to charity. The actors sweat, but their nightmare is a manufactured exercise. Really, none of the guys is very likable, except that poor lowbrow kid left alone with the pizza boxes.