21 Grams
Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Starring: Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio Del Toro, Charlotte Gainsbourg.
21 Grams is a Jumbo Jigsaw puzzle of scenes that piece together the lives of the three main characters. In one freak mathematical probability they become inextricably entwined.
Whilst the physicality is palpable this film is actually more a matter of mind. Curiosity as to how the pieces will come together is the compulsion to keep watching the myriad fleeting scenes. This intellectual pursuit tempers any strong emotional connection to the characters that in the mean while are being visited upon by harrowing events of Old Testament proportion. “Jesus didn’t come to save us from pain but to help us endure.”
Suspense is cleverly maintained by interweaving deliberately ambiguous scenes for which there is no real time frame reference.
Cristina (Naomi Watts), a woman with a troubled past, or is it future, begins to emerge as a wife and mother in a picture perfect family. Paul (Sean Penn), living in a dark and dissolute atmosphere, is seriously ill. Jack (Benicio Del Toro) is a man desperately, aggressively, defending his newly found salvation in Christ against an encroaching darkness. He has learned that God is aware of the movement of a single strand of hair and believes that the truck he has won is a Jesus given gift.
Paul, “a victim of his culprit heart”, is waiting for that call which will give him a new heart and a new lease of life.
This is a dark and heavy movie with only the occasional respite to be found in the sparkle of Sean Penn’s blue eyes or the rare outdoor shot. And yet, for all that weight, it is only 21 grams that departs when we die.
Lou Crow
