BLEAK LIVES, HORRIFIC MURDER PUT UNDER SCRUTINY IN `EYE OF GOD'.

Byline: Stephen Holden The New York Times

Except for an overlay of portentous religious symbolism, every detail of ``Eye of God,'' Tim Blake Nelson's bleak, haunting study of a brutal murder in Oklahoma, feels absolutely right. Set in a parched, fading little oil town named Kingfisher in the heart of the Bible Belt, the film tells the story of Ainsley Dupree (Martha Plimpton), a spunky, self-confident short-order cook in a local burger joint who makes a scary leap of faith by impulsively marrying the handsome ex-convict with whom she has been conducting a prison correspondence.

The daughter of an oil rigger who was killed in a fire, Ainsley is a simple, hardy soul who longs for love and is willing to take a huge chance in order to have it. And in the scenes of her rushed courtship with Jack Stillings (Kevin Anderson), who converted to Christianity while in jail, it looks as though he could be just the man of her dreams. Jack approaches her worshipfully, speaking with a quiet, compelling intensity about his newfound faith and the importance of family. All he needs is a job. And when he finds work in a gas station, his modest ambitions appear to be fulfilled.

But several ominous incidents point in a different direction. When Jack's parole officer pays a surprise visit to the house, Ainsley learns for the first time that her husband, who has refused to specify his crime, was incarcerated for beating a woman nearly to death. Not long after their wedding, Jack bluntly orders his wife to attend church services with him, no ifs, ands or buts, and his insistence has a mean, bullying edge. It's only a matter of months before he has forbidden Ainsley to leave the house while he's away, and she rebels, slipping away to a convenience store and snack shop where she spends hours sitting alone at a table and brooding.

``Eye of God'' folds the story of this promising marriage gone awry with what at first seems an unrelated drama. One night, a 14-year-old youth named Tom Spencer (Nick Stahl) is picked up bloodied and in a state of shock by the police. Gently prodded by the sheriff (Hal Holbrook), whose gloomy voice-over narrations frame the film, the boy leads him to the scene of a violent crime he has just witnessed. From here, Tom's story flashes backward to his unhappy family life before the crime.

The movie is extremely cagey in the way it pulls the two stories together, jumping back and forth in time and shuttling among the main characters in a style that deepens and adds mystery to what is essentially a simple tale.

The movie's one false note is the strained symbolism of the glass eye that Ainsley has worn since a childhood accident. In the hands of the director, who adapted the film from an original play, it becomes a heavy-handed metaphor for Ainsley's willful self-delusion, and, more broadly, for the inability of God-fearing folk to explain why (to repeat a cliche) ``bad things happen to good people.'' The sheriff's brooding ruminations focus on the story of Abraham and Isaac. What must the son have thought, he wonders, when he saw his father poised to kill him? And later, how did he rationalize God's demanding such a sacrifice?

``Eye of God'' is another small coup for Plimpton, whose uncanny ability to disappear into an assortment of thorny working-class characters comes close to matching Meryl Streep's in chameleonlike perfection. Anderson matches her in subtlety, allowing just the tiniest hint of psychopathic cunning to filter through his character's sincere, newfound piety. Holbrook reins in his usual folksiness enough to keep the sheriff's low-keyed ruminations from sounding too much like a sermon. The performances are a reminder of the illuminating power of exquisitely meticulous acting.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Eye of God'' (not rated).

The stars: Martha Plimpton, Kevin Anderson, Hal Holbrook and Nick Stahl.

Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Tim Blake Nelson. Produced by Wendy Ettinger and Michael Nelson. Released by Castle Hill Productions and Minnow Pictures.

Running time: One hour, 24 minutes.

Playing: Landmark's Samuel Goldwyn Pavilion Cinema in West Los Angeles and AMC Santa Monica 7.

Our rating: Three Stars.

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Photo

Photo: Short-order cook Ainsley Dupree (Martha Plimpton) marries the ex-convict she's been corresponding with in ``Eye of God.''