director
Alejandro González Iñárritu
screenwriter
Guillermo
Arriaga
story by
Guillermo
Arriaga
Alejandro González Iñárritu
producers
Alejandro González
Iñárritu
Robert Salerno
cinematographer
Rodrigo Prieto
music
Gustavo Santaolalla
editor
Stephen Mirrione
cast
Sean Penn (Paul Rivers)
Naomi Watts (Cristina Peck)
Benicio Del Toro (Jack Jordan)
Charlotte Gainsbourg (Mary Rivers)
Melissa Leo (Marianne Jordan)
Clea DuVall (Claudia)
Danny Huston (Michael)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 125m
u.s.
release: 11/21/03
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
other alejandro
gonzález iñárritu films
reviewed on this website:
- amores
perros
- babel
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As we enter the fifth year
of the "aughts," I still haven't seen a film this decade
as electrifying and forceful as Amores
Perros, the 2000 debut feature by the Mexican wizard
Alejandro González Iñárritu. His new one,
21 Grams, carries both the excitement and the self-defeat
of a young filmmaker convinced that he can do anything. It's
a brilliant failure -- a structural experiment that dazzles in
individual pieces but utterly lacks any overriding, accumulating
emotional power. I'm very glad that I saw it and that it was
made, and I never want to see González Iñárritu
do it again.
21 Grams tells a rather simple story, or trio
of stories, which, like the tales in Amores Perros, are
unified by a vehicular tragedy. Jack Jordan (Benicio Del Toro)
is an ex-convict who has given it over to Jesus; he credits his
Savior with everything from his clean new life to the big truck
he drives. One night, driving this truck, Jack cuts a corner
too fast and kills a man and his two daughters, leaving behind
a grief-stricken widow, Cristina Peck (Naomi Watts), a recovering
drug addict who has flung herself into her family as avidly as
Jack has into religion. Cristina makes the hard decision to allow
her husband's heart to be donated to Paul Rivers (Sean Penn),
an ailing math professor who desperately needs it.
The fatal problem with 21
Grams is that the story is largely given to us in shuffled
pieces; the chronology is splintered and all over the map. Hardly
any scenes proceed from each other; González Iñárritu
and his writer, Guillermo Arriaga, are too busy hopping around
in time. Now Cristina has a family, now she doesn't, now she
does again. Now Paul is dying, now he has a new heart and a new
lease on life, now he's dying again. Now Jack has long hair and
a job, now he's in jail, now he's got short hair and a job, now
he's in jail again. Eventually, somewhere in the second hour,
the movie does become somewhat more linear, but the damage is
done. The structure simply doesn't let any of the characters
build an arc of growth or despair; aside from being confusing,
the narrative locks us out.
González Iñárritu
does pull off some overwhelming moments, with the help of an
eager cast (also including Charlotte Gainsbourg as Paul's estranged
wife and Melissa Leo as Jack's slightly frightened wife). Del
Toro's Jack burns with shame and religious conviction -- either
way he's burning, and Del Toro lets you see how tenuous Jack's
pious restraint on his inner animal sometimes is. Penn's Paul
is a quiet, intellectual type, of the sort Penn doesn't often
play, who gets caught up in the passion of looking for the former
owner of his heart. Watts shines brightest as the despairing
Cristina, decaying before our eyes, a lost soul redeemed by family
and then removed from it. 21 Grams is powerfully acted
and, scene for scene, well-directed, but I can't say it's well-put-together.
Nor can I say the movie's baffling scheme is lazy or pointless;
it has clearly been structured this way for a reason, but nothing
in the film will tell you why.
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