Their son Frank (Stahl) is involved in a love affair with an older single mother, Natalie Strout (Tomei).

In coastal Camden, Maine, Matt and Ruth Fowler enjoy a happy marriage and a good relationship with their son Frank, a recent college graduate home for the summer.

Frank has fallen in love with a divorced older woman with children, Natalie Strout; Ruth is concerned about the relationship, while Matt thinks it is only a fling.

Frank is about to begin graduate school for architecture but is considering staying in town to continue working as a fisherman and to be near Natalie and her kids.

The couple retreat with friends Willis and Katie Grinnel to a secluded cottage for a weekend, but Ruth is distant and Matt begins to drink heavily.

At Richard's bail hearing, Natalie is pressed by his lawyer over whether she saw the shooting, as she initially testified when police arrived on the scene, and she tearfully shakes her head, as she only heard what happened.

She asks if he's okay, and Matt haltingly describes a photo he saw in Richard's apartment of him with Natalie in a loving embrace, but cannot explain why it affected him.

Field called Tom Cruise, a personal friend (and cousin of In the Bedroom actor William Mapother), who advised him not to give Weinstein any pushback, allow him to extensively re-edit, wait until the film tested poorly, then remind Weinstein of how well the film was initially received at Sundance.

[3][4] Critic Dennis Lim wrote in Village Voice: Todd Field's debut feature, In the Bedroom, alighted on the snowy peaks of Sundance last January as if from another universe.

Here was a small miracle of patience and composure, so starkly removed from everything the festival had come to represent that it seemed almost to herald the overdue coming-of-age of American independent film.

"[10]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 86 out of 100 based on reviews from 31 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

"[13] William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer compared Field's direction to Kubrick's, saying that it "manages to feel both highly controlled and effortlessly spontaneous at the same time; and his lifting of the facade of this picturesque, Norman Rockwell setting is carried out with surgical precision".

He further mentioned that "like Kubrick, Field doesn't make any moral judgments about his characters, and his film remains stubbornly enigmatic.

"[14] Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote, "In the Bedroom leaves us with the happy knowledge that with Field the American film scene, continually deplored as scraggly, can boast another admirable directing talent.

[15] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times stated in his review that it is "one of the best-directed films of the year" and that "every performance has a perfect tone".

[22] The March 2023 issue of New York magazine listed In the Bedroom alongside Citizen Kane, Sunset Boulevard, Dr. Strangelove, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Conversation, Nashville, Taxi Driver, The Elephant Man, Pulp Fiction, There Will Be Blood, Roma, and Tár, also directed by Field, as "The Best Movies That Lost Best Picture at the Oscars".

[23] The March 2024 issue of IndieWire listed In the Bedroom and Tár, also directed by Field, as two of the "Best Picture Nominees that Deserved to win the Oscar.

[43] During season four (episode eight, "Mergers and Acquisitions") of The Sopranos, Tony shows Carmela the new media center he has installed in the pool house, and she replies that she will pick up In the Bedroom for them to watch.