| 21 Grams | | Cast : | Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio Del Toro | | Director : | Alejandro González Iñárritu | | Studio : | Universal Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | December 26, 2003 | | DVD Released Date : | August 24, 2004 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 08, 2005 | | Summary | How much? | Content
 | Reviewing a fim like 21 Grams, a reviewer finds himself/herself contemplating a dilemma: Will they speak of the impact the film had on them or of the film as an objective work?
Thankfully, this film is so great on either level, that the dilemma does not really have to be there.
As far as impact is concerned, the film (along with "House of Sand and Fog") is simply the best I have seen in years. Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu alternates between moving, poetic scenes that most directors would not even dream of creating (which may seem artificial to some but, in my view, really isn't) and fearless brutally true scenes that capture the real horror the characters are facing.
The film has an irregular timeline, which curiously empowers instead of making it annoying.
The real gift, however, this film offers is acting masterclass.
Sean Penn has worked on Paul's character so deeply, that every word he utters feels perfect. Benicio Del Toro, a chameleon like actor creates tremendous emotional weight by simply being in the scene. Naomi Watts is a revelation. She is almost frightening in this film, her every breath seems like an effort not to burst, her every step is bound to send chills down the spine of viewers. Ms. Watts is as great an actress as they come. Period.
The film seems to aim directly to your heart and it is probably going to find its way in. Watching the film makes the audience uncomfortable, and forces them to dive into the dance of life and death, a filmic dance more beautiful and mysterious than we could have ever imagined. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 27, 2005 | | Summary | The Meaning of Pain | Content
| Reviewers tend to overuse the word 'harrowing': "The film concludes with a harrowing chase scene involving two dozen police cars and a stolen ice cream truck . . ."
21 GRAMS, however, inscribes itself on a viewer as deeply and painfully as the Harrow marks its victims in Kafka's "In the Penal Colony." The three lead actors (Naomi Watts, Sean Penn, and Benicio del Toro) vie with one another in terms of intensity, and the plot shuttles back and forth from a deadly car accident to a fatal heart problem, from a drug addiction to a dissolving family -- harrowing matters.
The director, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, flirts with melodrama, but does not succumb. He inverts and contorts chronology, but the jumbling never seems like a stunt. He does not withhold the past simply to shock with it later, and he does not insert the future just to prove himself smarter than his characters.
Gonzalez Inarritu does make two minor missteps. Late in the film, he allows Naomi Watts to scream a summary of her emotions: "Don't tell me to slow down -- my husband and daughters were killed . . ." The speech feels like the author's, not the character's, and breaks the spell the narrative has created.
The second mistake gives us the film`s title, but not much else. Those musings about the weight of the soul are a real distraction from the movie's final images -- the dying man on his respirator; the prodigal husband returning in the middle of the night; the mother sitting, and not sobbing, in her dead daughters' bedroom.
These images -- not any nonsense about "21 grams" -- are what take us past Watts's father's facile "Life goes on" to a less simple (and infinitely more valuable) affirmation. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 25, 2005 | | Summary | superbly acted drama on redemption and end of life | Content
| This is an utterly rivetting film about three lives that intersect by chance. First, there is the professor (Penn), whose health is deteriorating and whose marriage is all but a meaningless shell. Second, there is the wife (Watts) of his heart donor, whose pain at the loss of her family has driven her to return to drug abuse. Third, there is the ex-con who is remaking his life as a born-again christian and is lucky to be loved - he takes responsibility for a car accident that claims the lives of the wife's family.
What makes this film so outstanding is the actors: they are absolutely first rate and you feel what they are going thru as they question life and try to cope. It is so utterly believable that it is very painful to watch: you feel their conflict and the meaninglessness that threatens to engulf each of them, but also how they reach the point where the survivors can go on. With all of their flaws and the ambiguous outcome, this is not a simplistic hollywood feel-good film where all's well that ends well. It is brilliant art that reflects on life. The time shifts are also quite interesting and are not hard to follow as a narrative that is not quite linear.
Warmly recommended. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 24, 2005 | | Summary | Pretty Good | Content
| The movie kept me guessing. One had to concentrate hard to follow all the scenes going back and forth in time. Sean Penn is a great actor and proves it again in this film. Good photography and music. I have a slight problem with the title "21 Grams." At first I thought this had to do with drugs, but we later find out that the body loses 21 grams at the point of death. This is never thorougly explained. That is a weak part of the film. The college professor's wife in the film is not developed enough as a character, and I would have liked to see more of the mathematical, academic side of Penn's character. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 31, 2005 | | Summary | One of the most powerful movies I have seen | Content
| The nonlinear narrative method used in this movie is not for everyone. And it is definitely not for people that want to mindlessly watch a story unfold.
However, the powerful portrayal of three intertwined lives and the brutal cause and effect relationship that ties them together is incredible.
If you are a thinking person, then you owe it to yourself to watch this.
I put this movie up there with other powerful cinematic tragedies : Dr. Zhivago and The English Patient. |
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