21 Grams 2003 Starring Sean Penn Naomi Watts

Selected Product:

21 Grams

DVD
Format: Widescreen
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Publisher: Universal Studios
Release Date: March 2004
UPC: 025192416620
List Price: ~~$14.98~~

Average Customer Rating:

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Summary:
Sean Penn and Benecio Del Toro, two of the most gripping actors around, play wildly different men linked through a grieving woman (Naomi Watts, Mulholland Drive, The Ring) in 21 Grams. Del Toro (Traffic, The Usual Suspects) delves deep into the role of an ex-con turned born-again Christian, a deeply conflicted man struggling to set right a terrible accident, even at the expense of his family. Penn (Mystic River, Dead Man Walking) captures a cynical, philandering professor in dire need of a heart transplant, which he gets from the death of Watts' husband. 21 Grams slips back in forth in time, creating an intricate emotional web out of the past and the present that slowly draws these three together; the result is remarkably fluid and compelling. The movie overreaches for metaphors towards the end, but that doesn't erase the power of the deeply felt performances

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Rating:

Edited in a non-linear arrangement where the lives of the characters are depicted before and after a tragic automobile accident

Customer Rating:

21 Grams is a movie which has three parallel thread stories which seem to be unconnected but the movie progresses it becomes apparent that all three stories and characters are connected.

The thread stories are

1) Sean Penn plays a critically ill academic mathematician,
2) Noami Watts plays a grief stricken mother,
3) Benicio Del Toro plays an ex-convict who has newly discovered Christianity

All three characters center around a tragic automobile accident.

The movie although shot in chronological order, is edited in a non-linear arrangement where the lives of the characters are depicted before and after the accident. The random order in which the 'before' and 'after' bits of the 3 stories are mixed around, could confuse some viewers who are not attentive or who don't want to take the effort. This movie requires a bit of serious viewing. But it's different and novel. When the end, start and middle of the movie are mish mashed around, it breaks down our formal thinking process of a first, middle and last act of the movie. It also adds suspense and curiosity to see what transpired in between when we see the start,end and certain middle parts one after the other and then spend the rest of the time curious to know what happened in between and to fit the pieces of the puzzle. Not a conventional film, not for everyone but a good film neverthless.

And the title "21 grams" actually refers to suppossed loss of weight when a person dies. So when a body dies it looses the soul and in the movie we are told 21 grams is what the 'soul' weighs and we thus weigh lesser by 21 grams after death.

regards, Vikram

Pretty Good Movie	Customer Rating:
For the first half hour of 21 grams, I just had no clue what was going on. Then the story actually starts to piece itself together, and it was a pretty rewarding experience. Really good acting by Penn, Del Toro, and Watts. Parts of it were a little overly melodramatic, but it wasn't enough to distract from the quality of the movie.

What started out interesting grew very tiresome: 21 GRAMS in 205 MINUTES!

Customer Rating:

The more I think about 21 GRAMS the more I start to dislike it...so I better write quickly before the stars start decreasing!

Three separate lives all coming together as as a result of a car accident that kills a husband and two children. OKAY....told in a non-linear way....OKAY....some riveting performances.....OKAY....ending with a thud of an explanation....NOT OKAY.

After being flipped back and forth from story to story, time frame to time frame, trying to piece all of it together to result in a meaningful theme...all we get is 21 Grams is the weight of the soul...etc.etc.?? If the point of the film was that a soul is way more than just the biological 21 gram weight...well.....never mind!

When one boils down the entire plot and it's moral, why did director Alejandro Inaritu need to jerk us back and forth making us as nauseated as Sean Penn was in this film? I stayed with it (heck I had no choice!) for about 90 minutes, but after that this film and it's "clever" style just became downright annoying. I was tired of it and wanted it to end!!! The King in AMADEUS loosely quoted said "Once in a while it's just a little too...too....long.Just cut a few notes and I'm sure it will be just perfect!" Listen to the King Alejandro!

CRASH, TRAFFIC and MEMENTO do all of this better!

This film has all the markings of a truly great film. The sound, though, is probably it's worst feature.You have to keep lowering it during music sequences and yelling and raising it for lots of low-talking! That is a real pain in a film that jumps around like a worm on a hot rock! I best stop now, because a feel another star falling!

This is for those who want their grams back...

Customer Rating:

This was an extremely moving film that pulls no punches yet beautifully avoids passing judgment. Del Toro is Jack Jordan, a seemingly normal guy who commits a most horrific crime - in a hit and run, he kills a man and his two daughters, condemning Cristina (Naomi Watts), a mother and wife to a life of endless grief and hatred. Separated, Jack and Cristina endure a living death. Guilt-ridden Jack will consign himself to prison and find religion an apt avenue for suicide. Cristina, it turns out, had an especially unstable life before being settled down by marriage, and with her family gone, turns back to chemical bereavement counseling. Jack wants nothing more than punishment, and Cristina is all too ready to satisfy Jack's need.

And then there's Paul, the man who finally brings the two of them together. A mathematician with a terminal heart, condition and a marriage to match, Paul receives Cristina's husband's heart, and then court her. Paul thinks himself a hero, doubtless, taking Cristina out for lunch, driving her home from clubs when she's had one-too-many. But Cristina has an influence on Paul as well - a negative one.

This flick charts the emotional rollercoaster of Jack, Paul and Cristina's lives. The film plays out of chronological sequence, but hardly out of order. Like a ride, it has its fast moments and its slow ones, milking the maximum emotional velocity by playing its scenes to a climax before returning to an earlier point in the story. The effect is at times incomprehensible but also unforgettable. Suffice it to say, this is the perfect movie for people who like to see the same movie more than once. In a voice-over, the title supposedly refers to a theory that the human soul weighs 21 grams. This is the story of those who got their grams back.

Impressive! Ambitious!

Customer Rating:

I was tempted to entitle this review, "Too clever by half" but I would have been guilty of the same....Another title that came to mind was "Needs Heart Transplant" but I rejected that for the same reason.

On the positive side, most of the acting is superb. Sean Penn is never less than great and he does not disappoint here. Benicio de Toro's performance was beyond brilliant. Naomi Watts was the weakest in my opinion. (I loved her in The Painted Veil.) She relied on looking pale and blank and tensing her jaw too many times to show any number of emotions and somehow I found her just blah. She looks good, though, so men might overlook her pallor. I think any number of other actresses would have done a better job. Kate Winslett and Julianne Moore both come to mind. Melissa Leo, as del Toro's wife was perfect in her role.

The story is smart. It's full of thought provoking elements. Perhaps too many to be digested in the space of one film. This might be a good opener for a discussion group on any number of subjects: addiction, religion, abortion, marriage, suicide, heart transplants, etc.

That brings me back to "ambitious." There's nothing wrong with that, but I was so overwhelmed with the intensity of the content, that I numbed out, and by the end, I really didn't care about any of them. Except Jack Jordan (del Toro's character) and his family.

I found the technique of cutting back and forth in time more confusing than intriguing. As others have mentioned, it seems largely for the sake of being arty. A little mercy for the viewer would have been welcome. It did all come together, but too late in the film, for my taste, and by that time, I had stopped caring. If it had been filmed in a more sequential way, I think I would have been able to sustain my ability to keep my heart open to these characters. Also, the ratio of misery to joy was severely imbalanced, in my opinion and this had the effect of numbing me.

I agree with another reader who complained that the characters played by Penn and Watts were not fully written. Penn's, especially. He's portrayed as a real cold character, but when he gets the heart (transplant) of the good, famiy loving man, he warms up....but only to the widow of the dead man, not to his own wife, who wants desperately to stay in the marriage and have his child. Penn, by his natural humanity, makes us care about him, but that's a gift I think he gave to the script.

The Watts character didn't hold together much for me. She's portrayed as the loving wife, mother, sister and daughter, but then there is another, darker part of her that I think we should have seen earlier in order to make sense of her later meltdown. True, she was given an enormous blow, but others have suffered similar things without resorting to drugs and murder.

I have to give special mention to Jack Jordan, (del Toro). The character is written with great depth and compassion and acted accordingly. I was only going to give this film three stars but for that I add a fourth. He is the one, troubled as he was, who comes through with the real heart.

Another reader wrote that "the intricate screenplay isn't half as smart as it thinks it is" and I think he has a point. It seems that the goal of the film is to impress. If you want to be impressed, and don't mind being de-pressed in the bargain, then this might be the film for you.