OVP: 21 Grams (2003)

Film: 21 Grams (2003)
Stars: Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Naomi Watts, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Danny Huston, Melissa Leo
Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Actress-Naomi Watts, Supporting Actor-Benicio del Toro)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

We're continuing on with a throwback to 2003 again (as you might have seen this morning, 2003 is where a lot of my viewing focus is right now in terms of the movies that are coming from Netflix DVD), with 21 Grams, the other Sean Penn movie from 2003.  That year, Penn got all of his movement for Mystic River, and from that movie he finally won an Oscar.  I kind of wondered, though, if it was just the "time" for Penn to win, and if he'd have just as easily been the victor for 21 Grams, which obviously didn't slouch in the acting nominations, scoring for Naomi Watts (in Best Actress), and to fit our theme, Benicio del Toro (in Best Supporting Actor).  Before we discuss the three performances, though, let's go into the movie.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is, much like AGI's later film Babel, a tale of intersecting stories that eventually start to merge.  Unlike Babel, though, the film is told completely out-of-sequence, so as an audience you come to realize that you're seeing pictures of three central characters lives that will eventually merge together in a distinct order.  You have Paul (Penn), who is dying of a heart condition and is trying to create a child with his wife Mary (Gainsbourg) before he dies, Cristina (Watts), a former drug addict who now lives a suburban life with her husband (Huston) & two children, and Jack (del Toro) a former convict who becomes a born-again Christian and lives with his wife Marianne (Leo).  All of this falls apart when Jack accidentally kills Cristina's husband-and-children in a car accident, a car accident that eventually leads to her husband giving his heart to Paul. All three figures lives fall out-of-control, with Paul having an affair with Cristina, and Jack wanting to turn himself in despite Marianne's protestations.

Things get worse for all three before ultimately two of them (Jack & Cristina) find some redemption while Paul ends up dying (which is what he wants at that point in the film, to be honest), but you get the idea of what we're dealing with here.  AGI is arguably the most "important" modern filmmaker whose work I do not get.  I have liked exactly one of his movies (Birdman), but otherwise it always feels like he's making us watch people be tortured with little narrative payoff.  21 Grams might hit a new low on that front, to be honest.  The movie borders on torture porn the way that it grimly portrays all characters involved, and because of the (nonsensical-I don't understand this creative decision at all) scenes being out-of-sequence, we never get any sense of what these people's lives were like when they were happy.  The only character that gives any sense of normalcy in the film (and is my favorite part of the cast) is Melissa Leo's Marianne, who feels like a real person and not just a vessel for these people's woes to flow through.

Del Toro is the best of the central three figures.  This isn't in the same league as his strong work in Traffic, but it's at least an interesting characterization.  There's something there, even if the script is drowning out the character, and you always feel like given more room to breathe he'd find his way...though it's hard to give too much credit for a performance that is theory rather than practice.  Watts, though, is...bad.  I know that's mean (and I love her in other things like The Painted Veil or King Kong), but I don't get this at all.  This feels like the sort of nomination that happens when an actor has been a big deal for too long and the Academy is starting to look foolish for not nominating them at least once, but there's so little range in her emotions as Cristina.  Watts' portrays her as constantly screaming, constantly angry, as if there's no "formerly at peace" person underneath, despite that being a part of the script.  The movie does her no service, it's true, but I feel both she and Penn are giving in to the anguish of the script without adding any sort of texture to their work.