Directed by:
Alejandro González IñárrituScreenplay:
Guillermo ArriagaCinematography:
Rodrigo PrietoComposer:
Gustavo SantaolallaCast:
Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Danny Huston, Naomi Watts, Carly Nahon, Clea DuVall, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Claire Pakis, Eddie Marsan, John Rubinstein (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
College professor Paul Rivers and his wife Mary find their union precariously balanced between life and death. He is mortally ill and awaiting a heart transplant, while she hopes to become pregnant with his child through artificial insemination. Cristina Peck, having matured since her reckless past, is a beloved older sister to Claudia, a good wife to Michael and loving mother to two little girls. Her family radiates hope and joy. Much farther down the socioeconomic scale, ex-con Jack Jordan and his wife Marianne struggle to provide for their two children while Jack reaffirms his commitment to religion. A tragic accident that claims several lives places these couples in each other's orbit. In the aftermath, Paul confronts his own mortality, Cristina takes action to come to terms with her present and perhaps her future, and Jack's faith is put to the test. If spiritual equilibrium is to be regained by any one of them, it could come at great cost to the others. Yet the will to live, and the instinct to reach out to another person for support, remains ever present among them all. (Focus Features)
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Reviews (10)
In the first twenty minutes I thought, if I understand this, I'll be good. And world wonder, the connections started to work and I could see a truly perfect whole that is full of emotion, drama and well, just something you have to watch from start to finish to understand what initially is impossible to grasp. 21 Grams stands a cut above Alejandro González Iñárritu previous Amores Perros and deserves a full score for the theme, the acting, the music and the atmosphere, which was very dense at times.
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This is an example of how an untraditional approach to narration serves only as an effective gimmick to turn a film into something more interesting than it actually is. I’m quite surprised at how many people say that 21 Grams is very emotional, I think it would be almost impossible to deal with a similar topic in a colder way.
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I hate to say it, but I really didn't like this movie. It has a pretty simple story that is only intricately told to make it look more interesting, I feel it rather hurt the film. I found the flashbacks very hard to navigate, even more so when the film is so terribly boring, slow and not to mention emotional. Sean Penn's worst role yet. For me, a waste of time and all that hype even gave me a headache.
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Iñárritu's next fascinating, ruthless analysis of life's journeys, where a single moment forever changes everything that has come before it, with no way back and no forgiveness possible. The acting of the main trio, which would surely deserve a statuette, only adds to the enormous power of this film, which in many ways follows the lead of the excellent Amores Perros. Sean Penn, teetering on the edge of life and death in the hospital is truly unforgettable with his monologue about "21 grams", as is Naomi Watts in the scenes involving the most intense emotions.
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Another Iñárritu version of Amores perros, but this time with Hollywood actors. I still don't feel any particular connection or empathy for the characters that one might expect given the structure of the story and the escalating situations they go through. In short, 21 Grams is another example of manipulation of feelings. You need to subject the heroes to absolute suffering, then entangle and connect the stories, and then increase the suffering. That's what it's all about - about suffering, about denying yourself, about finding a way out. There’s too much violence in proportion to one meter of film.
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Gallery (43)
Photo © 2003 Focus Features
![21 Grams - Photos](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/166/114/166114462_b52079.jpg)
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