21 Grams (B or 3/4 stars)
'21 Grams' is a crime drama written by Guillermo Arriaga & directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Paul (Sean Penn) is a sickly teacher who's begrudgingly married to Mary (Charlotte Gainsbourg), a Brit. Christina (Naomi Watts) is a wealthy housewife, happily wed & mom to 2 little girls. And Jack (Benicio Del Toro) is an ex-convict who's found a resolve & Christian faith to raise a family. After trying to start his troubled life over, Jack accidentally runs over Christina's husband & daughters while they're taking a stroll. Her husband's brain is dead, and she consents to organ donation. Who gets his heart? Well, the ailing Paul, of course.
After yrs. on a transplant list, Paul can now have a better chance to live with this new heart. Newly Christian, Jack turns himself in for the hit-&-run, goes to jail, and is eventually released. Paul miraculously recovers and hires a P.I. to find out who his donor was. Interestingly, the P.I. discovers not only Christina, but Jack, the man who caused the accident in the first place! The remainder of the film involves the relationships that develop (good, bad, & ugly) between these 3 central characters. Themes of love, faith, courage, guilt & redemption are paramount here.
Gainsbourg is stellar as the stringent wife who wants to get pregnant, just so that Paul could see his child before dying. Del Toro is profound as the bad guy who accepts Jesus, works in a church, new family, then gets thrust into a jailbird life all over again. He can't escape an unfortunate destiny. Penn's Paul is doomed from the onset but is given a 2nd chance that doesn't always come around. Most impressive is Naomi Watts whose character goes from contentment, to a life where she's spiraling down into a world of drugs. You have to be engaged with everything going on from the get-go or else you'll get lost because of the 'way' Inarritu shoots his films. It's an incredibly intimate film; you're a voyeur to these people's souls in their utmost vulnerability. It's a film full of pain, suffering, but incredible honesty.
The question is ... are you up to the task of watching something so startlingly grim? Are you prepared to be taken down a dark road of damaging realism? If you make it through, you'll be rewarded with a gut-wrenching (though overwrought, at times) experience. Every character has to fight to start their lives over, and they do. Again, the film is quite heavy. I was a little exasperated with its foreboding misery. Stay the course of the distracting method of storytelling & you'll be sure to appreciate it. Then again, do you WANT to 'appreciate' a good film that you may only want to see once? Or does 'good' movie only mean that you'd want to see it multiple times. I may not want to see '21 Grams' again. Though, in this instance, that doesn't detract from my appreciation of it.
After yrs. on a transplant list, Paul can now have a better chance to live with this new heart. Newly Christian, Jack turns himself in for the hit-&-run, goes to jail, and is eventually released. Paul miraculously recovers and hires a P.I. to find out who his donor was. Interestingly, the P.I. discovers not only Christina, but Jack, the man who caused the accident in the first place! The remainder of the film involves the relationships that develop (good, bad, & ugly) between these 3 central characters. Themes of love, faith, courage, guilt & redemption are paramount here.
Gainsbourg is stellar as the stringent wife who wants to get pregnant, just so that Paul could see his child before dying. Del Toro is profound as the bad guy who accepts Jesus, works in a church, new family, then gets thrust into a jailbird life all over again. He can't escape an unfortunate destiny. Penn's Paul is doomed from the onset but is given a 2nd chance that doesn't always come around. Most impressive is Naomi Watts whose character goes from contentment, to a life where she's spiraling down into a world of drugs. You have to be engaged with everything going on from the get-go or else you'll get lost because of the 'way' Inarritu shoots his films. It's an incredibly intimate film; you're a voyeur to these people's souls in their utmost vulnerability. It's a film full of pain, suffering, but incredible honesty.
The question is ... are you up to the task of watching something so startlingly grim? Are you prepared to be taken down a dark road of damaging realism? If you make it through, you'll be rewarded with a gut-wrenching (though overwrought, at times) experience. Every character has to fight to start their lives over, and they do. Again, the film is quite heavy. I was a little exasperated with its foreboding misery. Stay the course of the distracting method of storytelling & you'll be sure to appreciate it. Then again, do you WANT to 'appreciate' a good film that you may only want to see once? Or does 'good' movie only mean that you'd want to see it multiple times. I may not want to see '21 Grams' again. Though, in this instance, that doesn't detract from my appreciation of it.