Overall Rating
  Awesome: 34.27%
Worth A Look: 24.48%
Just Average: 26.57%
Pretty Crappy: 10.49%
Sucks: 4.2%
13 reviews, 65 user ratings
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21 Grams |
by Elaine Perrone
"A Penn-sive Meditation."

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The weight of a hummingbird, a stack of five nickels, or a chocolate bar, 21 grams is also said to represent the exact amount of weight that each person loses at the moment of his or her death. In Alejandro González Iñárritu's vision, 21 Grams also seems to be a metaphor for the "weight" of the strands that connect people at random, and the ephemerality of life itself.The three strangers whose lives collide here, as a result of a freak accident, are Paul (Sean Penn), a dying mathematician whose heart and marriage are equally fragile; Cristina (Naomi Watts), a recovering addict with a loving husband and two young daughters she adores; and Jack (Benicio del Toro), an ex-con and born-again Christian working hard to put his life and family back together in the wake of a catastrophe. All are superb as flawed but essentially decent people whose worlds are thrown in turmoil by sudden, violent tragedy, each one struggling with his or her own overwhelming grief, rage, or guilt.
Also noteworthy are Melissa Leo (Homicide: Life on the Streets, The Ballad of Little Jo) as Jack's long-suffering but supportive -- and somewhat morally ambiguous -- wife, Marianne; and Charlotte Gainsbourg (My Wife is an Actress) as Paul's wife Mary, whose marriage, like her husband is in the throes of death, but who clings to the relationship in hopes of bearing his child via artificial insemination before he dies.
As he did with Amores Perros, Iñárritu (with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto) tells Paul's, Cristina's, and Jack's individual and interconnected stories in non-linear fashion, with many scenes becoming simply grainy snapshots through a hand-held camera. The technique is unnerving, and riveting. What would have made a compelling straightforward narrative becomes wrenching, heightening the audience's senses, forcing us to become active participants in the anguish unfolding before us, and virtually forbidding us to turn our eyes away.21 Grams is in no way simple, and there is very little light about it. Still, at the end, there is a grace note of redemption, leaving a ray of hope that the 21 grams from a departing soul will come to rest on, and bring comfort to, at least one survivor.
link directly to this review at http://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=8348&reviewer=376 originally posted: 07/26/04 19:23:42
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USA 21-Nov-2003 (R) DVD: 03-Oct-2006
UK N/A
Australia 22-Jan-2004
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