"…Forgive Me…"
21 Grams on BLU RAY
Like a freight juggernaut carrying the poisoned cargo of a
screwed-up past and a tormenting temptation-filled-present - ex convict Jack
Jordan is a train wreck waiting to derail yet again - only this time in
spectacular fashion. At the hands of Preacher John (the ever stunning Eddie
Marsan) Jack has at least discovered God ("Jesus gave me that
truck...") but he seems to be slowly losing everything else - his freedom,
his job and his family.
Mexican Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu had made the
brilliant "Amos Perres" in 2000 and it went a long way to drawing in
huge talent like Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and especially Benicio Del Toro (as
Jack Jordan). Not conventionally structured - 2004's "21 Grams" uses
the device of back and forward in time flashbacks to offer up a story of
accidents and loss and extreme pain and how ordinary people cope with it (or
not as the case may be).
The structure is odd and at times grating - but it
brilliantly unfolds the story so you slowly twig what's happened and to whom.
One minute Jack Jordan is clean-shaven happily waving to his friends by his
pick-up - the next he's in a prison shower again with a towel around his neck
(and he isn't trying to clear up his zits). Sean Penn's character Paul River's
is wheezing on a ventilator while he sneaks a cigarette from a pill bottle
stash in the bathroom in one scene - then is healthy and immaculately suited in
the next scene as he ogles a woman in a swimming pool (Naomi Watts) he seems
overly interested in for a married man. One moment he's raising a glass of wine
with his friends celebrating an organ transplant that has literally saved his
life - the next Paul is lying in a hospital bed looking battered with tubes in
his mouth - ruminating on the size of the bodyweight you lose when you die (the
film's title).
In between all of this we keep returning to a father (a
brilliantly subtle Danny Huston) on his mobile to his wife. He is clearly not
paying enough attention to his two young daughters giddily chasing a bird on
the footpath ahead of him. As the three pass out of shot - leaves are blown
ahead as a familiar-looking truck races past - and a few moments later (still
out of shot) there's an ominous screech of tyres...
While Sean Penn is typically magnetic - the movie belongs to
Benicio Del Toro who straddles it like a malevolent colossus. In the 'Making
Of' the Director says you need only point the camera at him and magic will
happen - worlds going on behind a glance. Yet somehow (and there are repulsive
scenes with his family) Del Toro fills his tattooed enraged Jordan with such
gravitas that you empathise with his gradual loss of faith rather than judge
him. In one scene he begs a startled man to kill him - end his torment - and
you don't for a second think that he doesn't really mean it.
But special praise should also go to the women who are
simply astounding and in some cases act the showier male names off the frame.
Charlotte Gainsbourg plays Sean Penn's wife Mary Rivers obsessed with having a
child even if their relationship is disintegrating - while Melissa Leo plays
the wife of the God-obsessed Jack Gordon trying to keep him out of jail and her
family together (both are simply superb). But it's Naomi Watts who blows you
away. There is a scene where she has to go the hospital to check on her husband
and two daughters only to be given unfathomable news. As a parent you
physically shake and ache with her harrowing disintegration (she's that good).
The only other times I've ever seen this sheer acting power is in "Bright
Star" about the life of poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne that has Abbie
Cornish give the same kind of mind-blowing performance (see review) and Marion
Cotillard's unbelievable performance in the Edith Piaf biopic "La Vie En
Rose".
With a 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio (the full screen is filled)
'adequate' best describes the BLU RAY picture quality. It isn't great by any
stretch of the imagination featuring many indoor and night scenes with an ever-present
pallor of grain. Shooting was all about feel and immediacy - and prettily
framed suburbia was never going to be part of the equation. But I'd still say
that the power of the watch quickly dissipates any qualms on that front. The
only subtitle is English for the Hard Of Hearing.
There's also a great "In Fragments" Making Of
where the Director gets all the cast and crew to throw red roses in the air at
the start of shooting and white roses when they finish. Each of the principal
actors get spots and they're praise and love of the work is palatable. Icing on
the cake is Gustavo Santaoialla's stunning score of electric and acoustic heavy
guitar strums (like a Mexican Ry Cooder). Gustavo also embellished
"Babel" and "The Motorcycle Diaries" with the same
emotion-tugging power.
Nominated for 2 Oscars and 5 Baftas - "21 Grams"
is visceral cinema peopled with a plethora of actors giving 1000% to a script
they know is hard-hitting yet somehow real world redemptive. Inarritu would go
on to make the equally brilliant "Babel" and the seriously harsh
"Biutiful".
In 2014 you can pick up the stunning “21 Grams” for five quid or less on BLU RAY - and that's a skydiver well spent in my book...
In 2014 you can pick up the stunning “21 Grams” for five quid or less on BLU RAY - and that's a skydiver well spent in my book...
