Contradicting Popular Opinion
A.K.A.
An Enquiry Concerning Why Your Favorite Movie Sucks: 21 Grams
Last week we covered Batman Begins. I awaited hell. I awaited hatemail. Tons and tons of hatemail. I got… virtually nothing.
Don’t get me wrong. I got about a dozen or so e-mails, but they were almost exclusively positive. Glowing, one might even say.
As the fella in Dagon says: there are two possibilities.
A: Batman enthusiasts merely praised Batman Begins as a step in the right direction for the franchise and not actually a good movie by its own merits.
B: People that enjoyed Batman Begins are a superstitious cowardly lot.
A bunch of people also chimed in on the bad science of the microwave weapon. You see, since people are mostly made of water, the machine would’ve turned anybody near it into a crispy critter. And if that didn’t happen, they would’ve been steam-cooked by the boiling water.
Good show.
Side note: I know a guy who used to work at one of the University of Chicago labs round these parts. They had an industrial size microwave. A very powerful one. One that functioned even with a door malfunction. Long story short, a guy got his arm nuked, and subsequently amputated.
All right, well enough of FoaF storytime.
We pull apart movies here. Some, like last week’s, we carefully dissect with a scalpel. They die a death by 1000 cuts. Other movies, we take a sledgehammer too.
21 Grams
21 grams is allegedly the weight of the soul. The original work behind this number was done in 1907, by one Dr. Duncan MacDougall. Dr. MacDougall had large scales onto which he loaded terminally ill patients. He performed six trials measuring the pre and post-death weights of these individuals. Of the six, one patient was shown to have lost 3/4 of an ounce, i.e. 21 grams. Thus, the legend of the 21 gram soul was born.
Of course, the other five trials showed different results. And even by the good doctor’s estimates his scale was only accurate to about 2/10 of an ounce. And the results have never been replicated. And six trials isn’t statistically significant. (One out of one lesbian grandmothers that I talked to found the movie 21 Grams to be pretentious and boring.)
But, hell, who wants facts and common sense to get in the way of a good urban legend. (For more info feel free to see what Dr. Karl has to say at http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/s1105956.htm )
Anyway to the movie proper. 21 Grams is the story of three people whose depressing lives are connected by a car crash. It is brought to us by the same writer and director team as Amorres Perros. Amorres Perros, if you don’t know, is the story of three people whose depressing lives are connected by a car crash.
See, it’s kind of a theme.
At any rate Jeff Spicoli, AKA Sean Penn, is now a college professor. Or at least the box says that he is. It isn’t very apparent in or important to the movie. We don’t really see him interact with students, research, quote Nietzsche, do complicated physics or generally act intelligently. He’s got a bum ticker, sponges off of his ex-girlfriend/wife person, and likes to smoke weed.
Naomi Watts, best known of course for Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering and Tank Girl plays… I’m not sure, really, some sort of blonde woman housewife thing. Whether or not she hearts Huckabees at this time is unknown.
Finally, Benicio Del Toro stars as a born-again, ex-con, recovering alcoholic, abusive father. Del Toro is, of course, famous for his role as Duke the Dog-Faced Boy in Big Top Pee Wee. He was also the male lead in Alicia Silverstone vehicle Excess Baggage, which is one of the ten worst movies I have ever scene in the theater. Man that movie could suck an otter through a cocktail straw.
So, anyway, Del Toro gets fired from his crappy job. Despite being a recovering alcoholic, he goes to the bar for a couple of drinks because, hey, some one else was buying. He drives home drunk takes a curve quickly and smashes Watts’s husband and kids to death with his Miracle Jesus Truck.
They take the heart from Watts’s husband (and not the heart from Huckabees) and put it into Sean Penn. This new blood pump provides Penn the courage to dump his ever so slightly estranged wife. You see, she was selfishly caring for him while he was deathly ill, and kept narcing on his stash. This also affords Penn the extra free time to stalk Naomi Watts while she swims laps to ease her grief.
Meanwhile, despite confessing to the authorities and being guilty of DUI, DWI, reckless endangerment, vehicular manslaughter, negligent homicide, starring in The Way of the Gun and having a previous criminal record, Del Toro is released because… Watts decided not to “press charges.” I think this confusing display of the penal system places the movie in the Vince Russo-verse where all court cases are civil.
Anyway, zipper chests turn Watts on, so she and Penn hook up. She tries to convince him to kill Del Toro in some sort of unoriginal revenge scheme. (Hint: the ironic punishment involves shooting him.) Penn agrees, but only pretends to kill Duke the Dog-Faced Boy.
Then Penn’s refurbished heart explodes and he monologues. The end.
So we are left with a message of…
don’t run over children?
… I don’t think it’s that.
Revenge is hollow?
… No we don’t really see that.
Life is suffering and then Sean Penn dies?
Perhaps the lesson we learn is that Naomi Watts is an actress of adequate skill capable of delivering a bland performance despite being attractive.
I don’t really get all the acting accolades for this thing. At best, I can say that the acting was pretty good but not terribly interesting. I will say nothing negative, however, about Melissa Leo as she was Kay Howard and her cases were always in black. Although she is no Frank Pembleton.
I will also note here that this movie is sometimes described as “cinematic poetry.” This is so because it chooses to play the scenes in random order. There’s a button on your cd player, or Ipod, that does similar poetic things. Perhaps the film would be more accurately described as “bad highschool poetry.” Playing the scenes out of order does not add anything to this story. Instead, it serves only to mask the lack of quality in the storytelling. By distracting the viewer with the puzzle of chronology, the viewer has less time to think about the movie itself and how it isn’t very good. Memento was much better at this trick. Of course, it also had a more interesting story behind it.
Now, being out of order isn’t necessarily a bad thing in itself, it just doesn’t do anything here. Pulp Fiction, for instance, uses the device to better tie its chapters together. It makes its message of redemption all the clearer. Other films can use flashbacks to parallel current situations, e.g. Godfather II, f*ck even Highlander. In 21 grams the non-linear nature was just pretentious and boring. (The lesbian Grandma was right!)
The problem here is multi-faceted. We have three main characters, but none of the three is particularly likeable. We never quite understand how they got to be where they are. They aren’t in situations to which, I for one, can relate. (Thankfully my family has never been crushed by a truck, nor my heart exploded, nor my Jesus-mobile killed any kids.) Maybe it is just me, but I cannot make an emotional connection to any of these characters.
We see very little of Watts’s family. We aren’t given any insight into the familial workings, their interpersonal relationships, etc. When they die, it feels empty.
Also, we don’t see much of the accident itself. We aren’t given anything particularly shocking or disturbing that would allow us to be haunted like Del Toro’s character or grieve like Watts’s. Instead of relating to Watts’s grief, I felt like I were at the wake of a stranger. You know, a friend of a friend dies, everybody else is wailing, and you are thinking about something else entirely, perhaps having a Monte Cristo for lunch.
Now, to be fair, they did show some medicinal gore in relation to Penn’s character. But, to me, it just served in showing the frailty of the character. Frankly, I don’t care about how easy it is to lose a character I don’t really care about in the fist place.
So we are left with a conundrum. The movie offers no particular insight into the human condition. It offers nothing profoundly shocking. It doesn’t offer relatable characters nor situations. It isn’t deep enough to be high drama. It isn’t fun or even entertaining. There are no light moments to contrast the dark tone. The film is a mess.
I can only conclude that the movie seems to be about watching strangers suffer. It aspires to be the emotional equivalent to a snuff film.
Besides, we are in America honey; the film should be called 3/4 of an ounce.
What Else to Watch
Hmm… I like just about everything better than this film. Seriously. I felt more pathos during Galaxyquest.
Let’s see… I Spit on Your Grave is a better female revenge picture. Cronenberg’s Crash is a better car crash movie. Mystic River is a better 2003 movie with Sean Penn.
Ooh, I know. Track down some “Homicide: Life on the Street” and watch the episode titled “A Doll’s Eyes” from season 4.
Trust me. It would take a robot not to cry during that.
