21 Grams

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// Don't change any javascript below this line. var eBayRedirectURL = "http://adfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/" + eBayMP_partner + "?loc="; function redirectEnter(form,url){ var eBayURL = url; for (var i=0;i<form.elements.length;i++){ var e = form.elements[i]; if ((e.type != "image") && (e.type != "button") && (e.type != "submit")){ if(i==0){ eBayURL += "?" + e.name + "=" + e.value; } else{ eBayURL += "&" + e.name + "=" + e.value; } } } var temp = eBayRedirectURL + escape(eBayURL); document.location = temp; } </script> <table width="468" border="2" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bordercolor="#3A3AF3" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> <tr> <td> <img src="http://img-snv.mediaplex.com/ads/711/1751/ebay_logo_468x60border_searchpull.gif" width="165" height="58" align="left" hspace="20"> <table border=0 cellpadding=1 cellspacing=0> <FORM action="http://service.bfast.com/bfast/click?bfmid=37920209&siteid=37746411&bfpage=350x50_search_border" onSubmit="redirectEnter(this,'http://service.bfast.com/bfast/click?bfmid=37920209&siteid=37746411&bfpage=350x50_search_border'); 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Rated R (for violence, language and sexuality).  Running time: 125 minutes.  </div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="592" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 20 WIDTH="588"><div>  <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#CCFF33" FACE="Arial" ><B>The weight of the world</B></FONT></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div>  Life goes on whether you want it to or not.  That's a central theme in director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's ("Amores Perros") searing new film about loss, sin and redemption.  </div> <bR> <div> Paul (Sean Penn) is a mathematics professor with a bad heart and little time left to live.  Christine (Naomi Watts), a former drug addict, is now clean and happily married with two children.  Jack (Benicio Del Toro) is a troubled ex-con who has found redemption in Jesus, and now works for a youth home.  The film reaches into their lives and those of extended characters including husbands, wives, children and friends.  And then something devastating happens that changes them all.   </div> <bR> <div> The film is told in the now familiar device of cross cutting between three seemingly disconnected stories and characters. Indeed, the first third of "21 Grams" is completely unpredictable and mysterious, with characters intersecting and looking completely different, sometimes from scene to scene - sick, healthy, strung out, cleaned-up, friends, strangers.  And then a tragedy occurs which is a cataclysmic trigger that causes all three ruined lives to intersect in unexpectedly daring and moving ways, forcing all three into spiritual crises.  Two characters experience a re-birth.  Another begins a terrifying descent into hellish darkness.  By the end of the film, they're inextricably, fatefully linked.   </div> <bR> <div> Penn and Del Toro are typically fine.  But<B> </B>"21 Grams" unmistakably belongs to the conflagrant Naomi Watts.  There's not a human emotion she doesn't etch out with a razor's edge precision.  Watts, a good actress who's been effective in her recent American film performances, has done nothing up to this point that will prepare you for what comes out of her in this film, and her emotionally and physically naked performance is painful to watch and obviously difficult to perform. There hasn't been a more wrenchingly honest or terrifying portrait of grief and suffering since Timothy Hutton twenty-three years ago in "Ordinary People."  If Watts fails to be nominated for an Oscar because there are too many simpletons' gripes about the film's darkness, symbolism or metaphors (I've already heard the detractors barking), there'll be no just victory for whomever takes the prize. </div> <bR> <div> Director Inarritu lays on the religious symbolism thickly - at times the film feels a bit self-consciously glum or wallowing in its depth of sadness. But mostly, it's got a redemptive power that takes your breath away.  Both "Amores Perros" and "21 Grams" deal with the difficult consequences of a tragic car accident. "Amores Perros" was an exhilarating cinematic trip, that stunned us with its pizzazz and high-energy, while stopping intermittently to catch its breath a bit with genuine scenes of human emotion. "21 Grams" is above all, an actor's film that's slower on the uptake but more consistently emotionally resonant and profound.   </div> <bR> <div> "21 Grams," led by Watts' virtuoso turn, is numbing in its power.  </div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="591" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="587"><div> Lee Shoquist © 2003</div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="587"><div> <A HREF="mailto:info@reelmoviecritic.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:info@reelmoviecritic.com"><U><U>lee@reelmoviecritic.com</U></U></A></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>