"21 Grams"-- Quite Simply Brilliant
Guillermo Arriaga and Alejandro González Iñárritu are not household names in the English-speaking world, but around Oscar-time, their film "21 Grams" will be the talk of the town. It is rare when everything in art comes together, and when it does, something happens that makes the huge number of failures tolerable. This film is such an event.
The story concerns a traffic accident, a heart transplant, and the emotional aftermath of guilt and second chances. Told as Hollywood might, it would be, at best, a Sunday night made-for-TV disaster. However, it is written and filmed out of chronological order with such precision that, just as the audience raises questions about who, what, why and how, the director and writer are answering them.
As for the cast, Sean Penn is a gifted actor, to say the least, yet he does not put in the film's best performance as Paul Rivers, a heart patient. Benicio del Toro does that as reformed ex-con and Jesus freak Jack Jordan; the role offers him a huge range, which he plays with seeming ease. Naomi Watts, whose talent was so horrible wasted in David Lynch's inarticulate "Mulholland Drive," is a recovering junkie and suburban housewife who has her life snatched out from under her with the cinematic possibilities that entails. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Melissa Leo and Clea DuVall round out a cast with small performances that are no less worthy for their size -- these people are actors not movie stars.
The non-chronological approach to the story and the handheld camera used in virtually every scene work to enhance the film The only drawback to these techniques is the inevitable film-school emulators who will decide the key to their film is the non-chronological approach. It is highly effective, but it is equally difficult. Screens all over the world will have ineptly told tales with shaky pictures for the next two years because of this movie. That is not the fault of the people who made "21 Grams," however.
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