21 Grams is a hard film to like. The first half hour or so is inaccessible and at points the editing leaves one bewildered. You don't get a chance to know or engage with the characters because you are buffeted between stories at an incredibly fast pace. I'm just about to learn about Jack Jordan's faith then I'm suddenly thrown into Paul Rivers's marital strife. At times this works well, like the cut from Jordan giving his son a slap, into Cristina Peck's kitchen where she is baking a cake with her kids. There is a certain fluidity to it that makes sense, aside from the fact that those events are actually taking place in the same time frame.
Ah the time frames. As I said at times the cutting between them is quite bewildering, but then I stopped to think what the movie would be like without them, as in the editing cleverly disguises what it really is. Yes it could have been a feature length episode of British hospital drama Casualty, with superior acting. Seriously, we've got the family of to meet mummy, the guy who's just been sacked and the guy who needs a heart transplant, what catastrophe will it take to get them all in the ER room? And that in my mind is where it all falls down, this is just a bit of melodrama, that is technically brilliant, contains powerful performances, but is at best a very dull story.
That's not to say I disliked it. The pay off at the end is very good, and seems to provide a philosophical twist to events, and gives Rivers a noble slant to his character's arc. Sean Penn IMO gives the stand out performance, measured, calm, at times enigmatic and never showy. He makes Rivers feel genuine. I believe in him when he 'stalks' the wife of his heart donor. Del Toro's Jordan is very good, he conveys the genuine anguish of his character, as he falls from the born again Christian he has fought to become. Watts as Cristina I felt was the weak link. There are moments where she gets angry, that I felt were incredibly contrived. For example when Paul first hits her with his revelation, her explosion felt stagey. I've seen angry, I've been angry, and know what it should be like. Melissa Leo as Jordan's wife is very good in the scenes she gets, but again it's a character conveying anguish. There's a lot of that in this film.
The director says it's a hopeful film, and I'd agree to an extent. The ending offers some hope for the characters, as they resume their lives. I don't think life is as simple as that though, they've seen and lived some pretty bad sh*t and I imagine they'd be scarred no matter how they approach the future.
I did like some of the symbolism Inarittu finds with some of the cuts. For instance there's a shot of Jordan leaving his truck, and as the camera lingers it captures in the frame a number of religious symbols in his car. Then when Cristina leaves her kids' room after she gets the call, the camera focuses on a mobile hanging. In each case it lingers for a second or so, giving one the chance for some reflective thought.
Overall it's an interesting film, it will make you think, but whether it will really engage your emotions I don't know. Certainly didn't engage mine and left me pretty cold. It's hard to find specific things to criticise it on, I suppose if I was struggling to say why I liked something I'd say it was the 'je n'ai ce quoi' so this is reverse 'je n'ai ce quoi' if you like. That and the fact that it's a glorified version of a bit of British kitchen sink drama!
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