Z/Web

Director: Jim Sheridan

I originally did not want to see this movie. The trailer intrigued me by the casting — Tobey, Jake, and Natalie — but the story seemed entirely elaborated in the trailer and entirely trite and predictable. Basically we have the two brothers, one of whom goes off to war and gets killed, while the other falls in the love with his brother’s wife. At least that’s what the trailer implied and I had little to no interest in such a film. Such an idea has been done a million times and I didn’t want to watch another film about an affair. But I heard a review of the film that warned me not to watch the trailer (too late) and said that the trailer ruins an excellent film. That intrigued me that perhaps the film was different from the trailer, so I went, and I’m glad I did. This film is nothing like the trailer. There are several key differences. The first is that we don’t learn in the trailer the interesting relationship between the two brothers. One is “good” and one is “bad.” The bad one has just gotten out of prison. The good one is the loyal soldier who’s going off to war. He’s always been the good son, the other the screw-up, and their ex-military father treats them accordingly. That sets us up with a familiar but still interesting conflict, especially when it’s the good son that gets killed overseas. I don’t want to spoil all the plot details, but let’s just say the implications of the “affair” in the film are overblown. The film is far more about family relationships: the daughter-in-law struggling to cope with her husband’s death, the “bad” brother trying to figure out how to form a new life after time prison, and both trying to help the dead brother’s young daughters. For me, the daughters are the film: the two little girls are so darling and quirky and wonderful, they break your heart in every scene they are in (scenes like the one where the girls attempt to make pancake breakfast for mom are incredibly precious and real). The relationships between them and their mother, their father, and their uncle are all fascinating. That is why you see this movie: to see the amazing family dynamics, adults trying to protect kids, kids who are simultaneously wiser and more innocent than the adults, etc. Forget the silly plot about a brother stealing his brother’s wife or whatever: that is not what this film is about. It’s about lost people attempting to be found. The film has some obvious plot twists that I won’t spoil here, but they are interesting and important, and the climax is dramatic and thought-provoking and doesn’t turn out quite the way you’d expect. This is a very good movie. It’s an amazing emotional journey. It’s less about the plot and more about various emotional states. Definitely one of the best films of 2009. My one criticism concerns a certain violent act in the middle of the film. This act is crucial in understanding one of the characters and the entire story, but the director shields us from the violence by cutting away so we don’t see it clearly. Honestly, that confused me. I wasn’t even sure the act had happened. I thought maybe something else had transpired and it wasn’t until later events that I realized it had happened. Even more important, the violence of the act is critical to establishing to true horror of the act and our understanding of the character’s later regret. Yet since the audience is shielded from the violence, it minimizes the act. Combined with my confusion over whether or not the act had actually happened, it softened the impact of the event tremendously, which weakened what should have been the film’s most profound aspect. I can only think about how much more powerful this film would have been had we been given at least a glimpse — one quick shot — of the raw, bloody violence. It would have been horrible and gut-wrenching, but that’s the whole point, of course. Everything that transpired after that would have been ten times more emotional. I don’t know if the director chose this approach or if he was pressured by the studio or others into toning down the act, but the sequence felt badly edited to me. Perhaps I need to see it again. Whatever the case, that was the only major flaw I noticed: I thought everything else about this film was fantastic. The daughters were amazing, the lead actors were terrific, all the scenes were wonderful with just the right mix of conflict and interesting dialog and tension. The dinner scene where the black sheep brother has his first family meal after being in prison was incredible, with each family member’s personality being evident and the drama and tension overwhelming. Just terrific. Ignore the trailer, don’t even bother to watch it, and just go see this film. Be prepared for an emotional journey that will affect you profoundly. It’s not necessarily a sad film — don’t think this is a Kleenex festival — it’s just emotional. There’s happy, sad, tragic, melancholy, touching, precious — all sorts of emotions. You’ll leave somewhat drained, and perhaps changed, and that’s the sign of truly powerful art.