21 Grams
A violent car accident unexpectedly throws together the lives of a college professor (Sean Penn), an ex-con (Benicio Del Toro) and a young mother with a reckless past (Naomi Watts). The crossing of their paths take them through the heights of love, the depths of revenge and the promise of redemption.
Member Reviews
Great cast - Fritos
Slow and confusing at first, but once everything starts to come together you just don't want to stop watching. Very heart wrenching and emotional. There are a great bunch of actors here, and they play their roles very well. Naomi Watts was so great in this movie.A Brainteaser - Quindog
Don't be discouraged if your lost during the first 20 minutes of this one; it will start to come together shortly. Much like "Crash" (the Matt Dillon one, not the James Spader one) the movie is 3 different movies about 3 seemingly unconnected people, who of course are actually connected.
To add to the braincramp of trying to figure out what the connection is while the movie jumps from one storyline to the other, then the other, then back again, is that the fragmented parts are not shown in chronological order either. So adding to the conundrum is trying to figure out if the snippet you are seeing came before or after the previous snippet of that particular storyline.
If it sounds like a lot of work to watch, I don't blame you, but it is really quite well done.
The acting is great all round and the three leads (Penn, Watts and Del Toro) give marvelous performances.
It is a rather unhappy movie where the main characters struggle to keep it together but become mostly unravelled via an unfortunate chain of events that becomes their link. It's a gripping expose of the human nature to self-destruct when life becomes grossly unfair.
If this flick doesn't make you realize your life ain't all that bad... I'm glad I'm not you.Bold, uncompromising and shattering - Baboonvideo
In only his second feature - the first in English - Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu chops up his narrative, splits the story between three desperate characters linked by a fatal car crash, then shuffles the chronology around to allow the arc of the story to only slowly come into focus. The result is a captivating collage of images and emotions that is at times devastating, hopeful, cathartic and excruciating.
21 Grams - the title refers to the weight of the human soul - stars Sean Penn as a dying math professor, Naomi Watts as a reformed drug addict-turned-mother and Oscar-nominee Benicio Del Toro as a religious ex-con with a huge weight on his shoulders. All three actors give shattering performances, not once falling victim to the more melodramatic aspects of the story with weepy hysterics or a single false note (Oscar-nominee Watts - in what will likely be a career-capping performance - is particularly heartbreaking).
At times, 21 Grams hews a little too closely to Inarritu's debut effort, 2001's Oscar-nominated and similarly structured Amores Perros, but Inarritu's vision is bold and exciting, marked by an uncompromising dedication and almost musical approach to editing. One can't wait to see what he comes up with next.
Member Reviews
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Great cast - Fritos
Slow and confusing at first, but once everything starts to come together you just don't want to stop watching. Very heart wrenching and emotional. There are a great bunch of actors here, and they play their roles very well. Naomi Watts was so great in this ...A Brainteaser - Quindog
Don't be discouraged if your lost during the first 20 minutes of this one; it will start to come together shortly. Much like "Crash" (the Matt Dillon one, not the James Spader one) the movie is 3 different movies about 3 seemingly unconnected people, who of ...Bold, uncompromising and shattering - Baboonvideo
In only his second feature - the first in English - Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu chops up his narrative, splits the story between three desperate characters linked by a fatal car crash, then shuffles the chronology around to allow the arc of ...