21 Grams (DVD)

...Thus we have ' 21 Grams ' , which was first released in 2003. In this exploration of American culture and the American psyche by screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga and director Alejandro González Iñárritu (both of Mexico), we get a riveting, if intentionally incoherent, cinematic semi-masterpiece from the same duo responsible for the Spanish-language film, 'Amores Perros' in 2000. For ' 21 Grams ', the screenplay was written first in Spanish and then ...
...Iñárritu for the entire ' 21 Grams ' does intrigue mightily at first. Like a jumbled-up jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces strewn randomly on the floor, we are shown wholly unconnected events from the very start. The opening scene has a nude, seated Sean Penn smoking in the background, glancing thoughtfully at a nude Naomi Watts fast asleep on the bed. Several cuts and unrelated scenes later, Mr Penn is in an Intensive Care Unit hooked up to a tangle ... more

Non-linear storytelling seems to be all the rage these days, especially with the success of 'Memento' in 2000, with its reverse plot revelation (which I thought germane to the story of a man struck with amnesia). Thus we have ' 21 Grams ' , which was first released in 2003. In this exploration of American culture and the American psyche by screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga and director Alejandro González Iñárritu (both of Mexico), we get a riveting, if intentionally incoherent, cinematic semi-masterpiece from the same duo responsible for the Spanish-language film, 'Amores Perros' in 2000. For ' 21 Grams ', the screenplay was written first in Spanish and then translated into English.

Well, the fractured style adopted by director Iñárritu for the entire ' 21 Grams ' does intrigue mightily at first. Like a jumbled-up jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces strewn randomly on the floor, we are shown wholly unconnected events from the very start. The opening scene has a nude, seated Sean Penn smoking in the background, glancing thoughtfully at a nude Naomi Watts fast asleep on the bed. Several cuts and unrelated scenes later, Mr Penn is in an Intensive Care Unit hooked up to a tangle of tubes. And then suddenly we see him sitting in front of an empty, dishevelled swimming pool, pondering a pistol that he holds in his hands. A few more cuts, and we see Naomi Watts cradling the blood-stained head of Sean Penn, and the two are in the back seat of a car hell-driven by an also bloodied Benicio del Toro.

The cross-cuts and disjointed juxtaposition of scenes quickly engages your mind. Hardwired as it is to seek logical links between events onscreen, it tries feverishly to make sense of the disparate images. How did these three end up in that car, all bloodied up? One feels fully invested in the film by now, and at least to this viewer, this obligatory participation on the audience's part was not unwelcome in the least.

After about a half-hour or so, the larger pieces of the tale start to fall nicely into place, and we get a sense of satisfaction from finally solving a major part of the puzzle. At last we've come to understand the respective situations of the three leads whose stories have eluded us until now.

The Stories of Their Lives

Jack Jordan (Benicio del Toro) is a simmering volcano who attempts to redeem his drug- and crime-ridden past by saturating his whole body and being with at least the trappings, if not the essence, of his Jesus-centred religion, a task he carries out with a scarily manic fervour. His deep personal need for redemption brings out an evangelical streak in him, and Jack makes it his mission to save one resistant youth from making the same mistakes he did, as Jack sees himself reflected in the young man. With wife Marianne (Melissa Leo) and two young children to support, his main aim is to hold down a job - not so easy for Jack despite all his efforts.

Paul Rivers (Sean Penn) is a maths college professor with an unmentioned, fatal cardiac condition that requires a heart transplant. Back in a shaky reconciliation with his once-estranged English wife, Mary (Charlotte Gainsbourg), he finally gets the new heart, and things seem hopeful at the post-transplant party with friends - except that they're not. Mary desperately wants to have Paul's baby very soon despite medical obstacles to the same, and goes for broke in willing it to happen. Her plan is not entirely to Paul's liking, either. Meantime, Paul grows obsessively curious about the source of his life-giving organ and will not rest until he finds out the identity of his donor and the circumstances of his death.

Ordinary-seeming soccer mom Christina Peck (Naomi Watts) receives the most shattering news of her life one fateful day, and spends the rest of the film as a deeply grieving woman. In her unfathomable anguish, Christina shifts unpredictably between states of post-traumatic numbness, exhausted emptiness, mindless hunger of desperation, and vengeful rage. In her hour of heavy mourning, she initially tries to dull the pain with drink, but the drugs that once defined her life before she cleaned up and raised a family proves to be too much of a temptation.

Our trio's lives are inextricably linked by one horrible accident, and when they later emerge from their pairings, collisions and clashes, one character dies, another finds unexpected hope after more devastation, and the third descends deeper into self-flagellation . The story doesn't quite tie all loose ends to one's satisfaction, but the journey up to this point has been a supremely tense and harrowing one. It is a gripping tale, if not exactly out of the ordinary, thanks largely to the splendid work of the entire cast.

Screen Performances that Blow You Away

The film boasts extraordinary ensemble acting by Mssrs Penn and del Toro and Ms Watts, with nary a false note anywhere. Sean Penn conveys volumes merely through his glances and posture. His line deliveries are a study in economy. In one favourite scene, he says a simple line of dialogue with a perfect blend of humour and tentativeness that confers a surprising poignancy to the situation. At the sports club frequented by Christina Peck (Naomi Watts), he says offhandedly to the quietly devastated woman who just wants to be left alone with her tuna fish sandwich, 'Did you know that eating alone can cause kidney damage? --and that's ba-a-a-d!' He smiles shyly and quickly backs away, fearing that he's botched it all. It's an awkward moment, for he remains unsure about how to connect properly with Christina. For her part, Christina remains unaware of her significance to this stranger attempting to make light talk with her. The scene establishes Paul's character and instantly endears him to us.

Benicio del Toro's portrayal of the tormented Jake Jordan breaks your heart for the utter sincerity of his character. There is a tense scene with his family at the dinner table that betrays Jake's inner turmoil beneath his religious conversion. Jake's brittleness is frightening, and one fears he could snap and go berserk at any moment and on the slightest pretext. It's something we also see through the distress-filled eyes of his wife, Marianne. Jake works hard to follow the straight and narrow, but circumstances conspire against him, diminishing his chances to start life anew.

Her role as Christina Peck would be the second breakthrough film performance for Naomi Watts, whose impressive work on David Lynch's 'Mulholland Drive' would shoot her straight onto Hollywood's A-list. Here teamed with such high-calibre actors as Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro, Ms Watts more than holds her own. In fact, hers might be the toughest role of all. In her searing portrayal of Christina the emotional rawness to the scenes can sometimes be painful to watch. Once more she demonstrates that rare ability to switch moods on a dime, as in the scene in which Paul, at her urgent request, goes to her at 2 in the morning and quietly but abruptly confesses all.

None of the three come off as pure heroes or villains. Each is a fully fleshed-out, three-dimensional human being filled with the conflicts and complexities of real, ordinary lives.

The rest of the cast leave an indelible impression as well. As Marianne, Jake's wife, Melissa Leo cares sincerely about her troubled husband, and her concern about his well-being weighs heavily upon her. She becomes the pillar of strength for Jake when things really turn sour, and one's heart goes out to her when she realizes the crisis into which Jake has been plunged.

A major star in her own native France (her English accent derives from her Anglo-French parentage, being the daughter of English actress Jane Birkin and French singer Serge Gainsbourg), Charlotte Gainsbourg doesn't balk at portraying the fairly unsympathetic character of Mary, Paul's wife. Later on, however, the inner fragility that underpins her seeming decisiveness is revealed to us, as she grasps at straws to save something - anything - from her fast dying marriage to Paul.

As Jake's mentor, Reverend John, Eddie Marsan spares the irony in his convincing turn as the passionate preacher. Even in her brief scenes, Clea DuVall is persuasively supportive as Christine's sister, Claudia. Paul Calderon may have a small part as Brown, Jake's friend who tries to help him get a job, but he more than passes muster, and the same goes for Annie Corley as Trish, Jake's sister who kids around with Marianne while waiting for Jake to show up for his birthday party.

Some Memorable Scenes

Many scenes from the film remain in one's memory. The one in which Paul first approaches Christina at the sports club, trying to strike up light conversation with her is especially touching; there's also the crushing moment when Christina collapses to the floor upon hearing the worst news of her life. The wordless sequence in the SUV, in which Paul attends to a knocked-out, exhausted Christina with such tenderness and love; and the jailhouse scene with Jake debating his mentor, Reverend John, on religion's relevance to his current life situation - raising some very interesting questions in the process - are among the many moments that persist in the mind beyond the film's end.

A Few Technical Matters

Mr Iñárritu conveys the blue-collar world of Jake Jordan (many scenes were shot in Tennessee) and the middle class one of Christina Peck and, less obviously, of Paul Rivers, with a striking authenticity. The use of orange filters and grainy film stock as well as the handheld camera work all contribute to the unvarnished look of the picture, adding to the palpable realism and sense of immediacy that suffuses the film.

So how does the disordered narrative hold up at the end of the film? For the first half-hour or so, the trick works like a charm. However, once the audience has gleaned the larger premise, the intentional disruption of the plot sequence starts to work against the film. This comes about an hour into the movie, at which point the rest of the tale should have been left to unfold in conventional linear fashion. The continued interruption by random scenes here only distracted from the main plot thread. Additionally, the constant cutting back-and-forth dampened the emotional impact of some scenes. It would have been interesting to see the entire film laid out in chronological sequence, enabling one to decide on whether the disjointed approach helped or hindered the film's ultimate success.

The Title

Most readers know by now that the title ' 21 Grams' does NOT refer to some unit of cocaine or other drug use, even if this gritty film drama does display and reference such drug consumption. Instead, ' 21 Grams ' supposedly refers to the mass lost by the body upon the instant of death, hence representing the weight of one's soul, as some would have us believe. The film also tells us that 21 grams is the weight of a hummingbird, a stack of three nickels, a chocolate bar, and so forth….(In fact, the number originated with some pretty dodgy experiments dreamed up by a Massachusetts man named Duncan MacDougall in the 1900s, who wanted to estimate how much the soul really weighed - I kid you not.)

So why the title? I'm not so sure, and really, all bets are off on this one. The phrase emerges only in the voice-over that we hear near the end, in philosophical musings expressed languidly by one character. I've read elsewhere that the titular 21 grams signifies the metaphorical weight of life, love, hope and despair that is transferred upon the living by those who have left this world. This seems fitting, as this is a tale of loss and hope, of love and revenge, of going on with life after death, of self-reinvention and renewal, and of sin and redemption. Despite its flaws and occasional attempts to seem more profound than what the script can bear, ' 21 Grams ' remains worthy of your attention - and repeat viewings only increase appreciation of the film. It gets four and a half brilliant stars from me.

 

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