Description
The emotionally and physically charged lives of three people, a college professor (Sean Penn), an ex-con (Benicio Del Toro) and a young mother with a reckless past (Naomi Watts), collide unexpectedly in this gripping suspense thriller.Fate brought them together. Now vengeance will take them to the heights of love, the depths of revenge and the promise of redemption. Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts give the finest performances of their careers in the film that is "tantalizingly alive!" - Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
Amazon.com
Sean Penn and Benecio Del Toro, two of the most gripping actors around, play wildly different men linked through a grieving woman (Naomi Watts, Mulholland Drive, The Ring) in 21 Grams. Del Toro (Traffic, The Usual Suspects) delves deep into the role of an ex-con turned born-again Christian, a deeply conflicted man struggling to set right a terrible accident, even at the expense of his family. Penn (Mystic River, Dead Man Walking) captures a cynical, philandering professor in dire need of a heart transplant, which he gets from the death of Watts' husband. 21 Grams slips back in forth in time, creating an intricate emotional web out of the past and the present that slowly draws these three together; the result is remarkably fluid and compelling. The movie overreaches for metaphors towards the end, but that doesn't erase the power of the deeply felt performances. --Bret FetzerAlso Recommended...
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful:
Drenched in depression and seeping with brilliance...`21 Grams' may be his best film to date.
The film tells the complicated and heartrending story of a young woman named Christina who is drawn into the lives of two men after a tragic accident leaves her widowed. One of those men is Paul, a professor in dire need of a heart transplant. The other man is Jack, an ex-convict who has turned his life over to god in order to atone for his sins, one of which being the cause of Christina's predicament.
Yes, Jack killed her husband.
Shifting back and forth within time, `21 Grams' weaves a delicate web of harsh realities that brings the audience to a dark place thriving with life. The complexities are all held tightly within these three amazingly real characters, all of which come to life in vivid and mesmerizing ways. My first viewing of this film left me rather spellbound. I knew it wasn't perfect (not many films are), but it also had such a strong hold on my emotions that I was compelled to watch it again and again and again. Every time I see this film I am rushed with more emotions, for it remains real and compelling every time. The reality that life is fragile and that life is every changing seeps through every pore of this film. You can't help but watch these shattered souls and wonder how they make it through. Their struggles are so deeply felt, so richly realized. Some have balked at the films unending sense of torment, but for me it never really becomes something unbelievably harsh. `21 Grams' uses the darker realities of life as a stepping stone to establish human tendencies and the need within us all to survive. It also shows the will we have to right the wrongs and redeem ourselves through the survival of others.
As depressing as this film is, it is strangely uplifting upon reflection.
The performances here are all stellar, especially from Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts. Watts, one of the greatest actresses of her generation (a few pegs shy of Kate Winslet), delivers a gut punch performance here. Some call this performance too dramatic, but I think that that particular perception may be poisoned by the films narrative flow. It only seems dramatic because the pieces are not in order. When you consider how she builds her character and look at it from that view then you see a completely realized character. She understands how to live within the character. You can see her taking in every moment, and it helps create someone truly unforgettable. Del Toro is one of the better actors working today. This performance is most certainly his finest to date. The way he drenches himself in his character determination, allowing his every fault to become his driving force; it's unmistakably solid. Instead of falling into the cliché of playing a `Jesus Freak' with obviousness, he underscores a generic character with flourishes of purpose and understanding. Sean Penn, an actor I find highly overrated, is very good here. This performance is FAR better than his hammy Oscar winning one from the same year (how he one of `Mystic River' is beyond me). He understands the subtlety that is needed to highlight to unnerving reality befalling this man. You can see him slowly withering away within his own solitude.
The supporting cast is also magnificent here, especially the significant others played by Danny Huston, Melissa Leo and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
In the end I highly recommend this film. It is an eternal downer at first glance, so be prepared to take your mood down a few notches, but the rich script allows for the emotions to display themselves in interesting and provoking ways, and this is definitely a film that will continue to provoke you to think, and glean.
0 out of 4 people found this review helpful:
AMERICA'S CRITIC0 out of 0 people found this review helpful:
Confusing Mix of Scenes -The three main characters played by Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts are constantly striving to overcome addictions and life hardships. Over a period of several months, an accident throws their fates together. The overwrought drama of faith, redemption, love and mortality is draining to watch. The sadness of drug addiction, infertility, organ transplants, low socioeconomic lives, and con men is definitely drama overkill.
21 Grams takes dogged determination to watch. Just putting the thrashing scenes and pieces of their lives together makes one dizzy. There is nothing other than boredom throughout as the dark, graphic, morbid, mess of three lives was irritating to the senses.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful:
An Extraordinary FilmInarritu enlists the intelligence of his audience and what a partnership that creates! His "style" is called non-linear which merely means that the story of the film is not spoon fed to us in a "this happens, then this resulted, then this altered, then this happened" etc fashion. Inarritu takes advantage of the fact that visual images can hold so much power that the story behind them seems secondary at the moment of viewing only to alert us to THINK as we see bits and pieces of history and result dangling from a mobile, ever in motion. We are led to believe one thing depending on how we relate to the image on the screen, and then we are shown that we misjudged that event as we are given more detail from the past and from the future.
While this technique may sound difficult to follow, Inarritu uses it with such facility that learning the true story being told is similar to the way we are running through life: we see fragments, remember tiny moments, watch the media alter variations of reporting reality, hear gossip, view events with prejudiced eyes, form opinions based on our individual experiences with like events in our own lives, or in other words always be faced with the question of what are the drivers of accidents/fate/destiny/need/passion.
The story is basically one of how three disparate characters' lives complexly intertwine - people who come to a fatal auto crash with very different life patterns. A mathematics professor with severe heart disease, a reformed drug addict mother who happens to be the wife and mother of the victims, and a Bible thumping ex-con who drives the truck that causes the accident. The events that ensue after the crash (the victim a heart transplant donor for the mathematician, the devastation the event has on the perpetrator and on the surviving wife) are the storylines we follow. The ending is an intelligent, shocking surprise and one that alters the way you will view events and people after you leave the story behind.
Inarritu has employed the gifted artists Sean Penn, Benecio Del Toro, and Naomi Watts and each of them gives the most potent performances of their careers to date. It is impossible to single out the strongest one as each actor owns the full spectrum of each character and each performance seems to exude from their innermost core of their talent. Each is powerful, subtle, sensitive, wholly credible and deeply moving. The other cast members are very strong - especially Clea DuVall and Charlotte Gainsbourg who take their seemingly supportive roles to heights of such importance that it seems the story could not progress without them.
The photography is appropriately and conceptually dark and the quality of the picture has a decadent graininess to it that enhances the mood and the perplexing mystery of the story. But in the final analysis it is the magisterial directing talent of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu that is simply mind-boggling. This is a VERY important film, so very much worth the work required from us the audience, and as with most things in life, the more we invest the more we gain. Well worth 10 Stars! Grady Harp, December 09
0 out of 0 people found this review helpful:
Life, Death and Resurrection?Film director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has developed a complex, tasty and compromised "film d'art". We may trace different stylistic influences on this movie: Quentin Tarantino's (Pulp Friction) non linear time sequence and some touches of Kieslowski's (The Double Life of Veronique) casual but most meaningful encounters between different characters.
Inarritu transforms an ordinary everyday issue in a strange, tangled and puzzling drama.
The story is as follows: there is a sick mathematician waiting for a heart transplant as last resort to survive; there is an ex-con trying to make a new clean life for him and his family; there is a family father taking care of his daughters. Tragedy and fate reunite all these elements into a griping tale.
Main actress and actors in the film perform greatly.
Sean Penn, as the feeble hearted mathematician, is able to express and transmit the anguish of nearly dying man. Afterwards he shows the compulsive need to find who his donor was.
Benicio Del Toro, as the ex-con, presents a very convincing mask of a tormented man trying to overcome his addictions and drawbacks in order to have a new opportunity.
Last but not least, Naomi Watts, as the widow of the donor, gives a performance full of subtleties.
Viewing this movie in DVD gives the unique opportunity to go back to previous scene when you get lost.
This picture is tasty dish for movie fans. Enjoy!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.
