21 Grams
| Year: | 2005 |
| Director: | Alejandro González Iñárritu |
| Cast: | Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio Del Toro, Danny Huston, Charlotte Gainsbourg |
A very well acted and interesting story made all the more so by the narrative having been put in a blender, shredded at high speed and then poured out for the viewer to experience. The fractured nature keeps teasing you and making you wonder what's going to happen more effectively than the story could have just playing itself out linearly, and together with three of the strongest actors today it's pretty riveting from start to finish.
Three lives collide in a classic movie way. The husband and children of young wife and former drug addict Cristina (Watts) are killed in a hit and run. A reformed con trying to stay straight thanks to Jesus, Jack (Del Toro) was behind the wheel and it quickly undoes him. The dead man's heart has gone to a transplant patient with mere weeks to spare, Paul (Penn). As the three slowly become known to each other, their lives change even more irrevocably.
Shot and written in chronological order but presented very much out of it, it's the much more mature film that director Inarritu had in him after the big splash of Amores Perros.
Naomi Watts does anguish and despair beautifully, and it's not for nothing she's finally being recognized. Penn is always near-faultless and Del Toro likewise so, especially with a script this good.
And if you think you've seen the maddeningly sexy Charlotte Gainsbourg before, who plays Penn's wife, it might have been in My Wife is an Actress.
Three lives collide in a classic movie way. The husband and children of young wife and former drug addict Cristina (Watts) are killed in a hit and run. A reformed con trying to stay straight thanks to Jesus, Jack (Del Toro) was behind the wheel and it quickly undoes him. The dead man's heart has gone to a transplant patient with mere weeks to spare, Paul (Penn). As the three slowly become known to each other, their lives change even more irrevocably.
Shot and written in chronological order but presented very much out of it, it's the much more mature film that director Inarritu had in him after the big splash of Amores Perros.
Naomi Watts does anguish and despair beautifully, and it's not for nothing she's finally being recognized. Penn is always near-faultless and Del Toro likewise so, especially with a script this good.
And if you think you've seen the maddeningly sexy Charlotte Gainsbourg before, who plays Penn's wife, it might have been in My Wife is an Actress.