You know you're in trouble when the best looking person in this movie is Sean Penn
Added 1/19/2010
I think this movie could have been better, if, it was shown in order of the events that happened, but it wasen't. The story kept jumping ahead, then going back that made it difficult to follow for me anyway. A lot of new directors do this, makes it seem more artsy. When it would have been better to keep it simple. All the actors seemed sincere in their respective parts. I didn't get the Namoi Watts part, were did her family go?, why didn't she get into grief therapy? It's only a movie, and the director will improve with more experience, hopefully. Enjoy!
0 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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An Extraordinary Film
Added 12/25/2009
21 GRAMS is a film of such importance that attempting to review it is intimidating. Once in a while a film appears that is a Benchmark, a film that is destined to alter the concept of moviemaking as an art form. That this is only the second film from the obviously prodigiously gifted co-writer and Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu ( the strikingly creative and disturbing 'Amores Perros' being his first) serves the craft well in continuing the promise of film as art.
Inarritu 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 helpful.
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Life, Death and Resurrection?
Added 10/16/2009
This is a hard film to see and understand, nevertheless is outstanding and deserves to be seen.
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.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Great story, well told
Added 9/25/2009
Take the stories of three people, etch them on a pane of glass, smash the pane into shards, then rearrange the shards. That's the way this incredible movie is told. A math teacher (Sean Penn), a born again social worker (a haggard-looking Benicio del Toro) and a recently-widowed mom (Naomi Watts) live lives that intersect around a traffic accident and a heart transplant. The story unfolds over the course of the movie, juxtaposing past and present in a display of superb plotting. Aside from the three principals, Melissa Leo (as del Toto's long-suffering wife) and others turn in stunning performances.
The 21 grams of the title refers to an old discredited study that purports that at death, we lose exactly 21 grams of weight, attributable to the soul leaving the body. But the "soul" in question here is less about immortality than about the life force exhibited when people enter each others' lives.
A stunning movie of great art, heart and subtlety.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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How much weight do you lose when you die?
Added 6/28/2009
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's circumstance-centered drama is a sweeping character-driven epic. Del Toro stands out as a born-again Christian who accidently kills a father and his daughters. If you're looking for a film in the same vein as Babel, and Amores Perros- check this out.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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You know you're in trouble when the best looking person in this movie is Sean Penn
Added 1/19/2010
I think this movie could have been better, if, it was shown in order of the events that happened, but it wasen't. The story kept jumping ahead, then going back that made it difficult to follow for me anyway. A lot of new directors do this, makes it seem more artsy. When it would have been better to keep it simple. All the actors seemed sincere in their respective parts. I didn't get the Namoi Watts part, were did her family go?, why didn't she get into grief therapy? It's only a movie, and the director will improve with more experience, hopefully. Enjoy!
0 out of 2 people found this helpful.
|
An Extraordinary Film
Added 12/25/2009
21 GRAMS is a film of such importance that attempting to review it is intimidating. Once in a while a film appears that is a Benchmark, a film that is destined to alter the concept of moviemaking as an art form. That this is only the second film from the obviously prodigiously gifted co-writer and Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu ( the strikingly creative and disturbing 'Amores Perros' being his first) serves the craft well in continuing the promise of film as art.
Inarritu 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 helpful.
|
Life, Death and Resurrection?
Added 10/16/2009
This is a hard film to see and understand, nevertheless is outstanding and deserves to be seen.
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.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
