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Mathew Scott

21 Grams

Starring: Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio Del Toro, Charlotte Gainsbourg

Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Category: III

The filmmakers took a big risk with 21 Grams, dispensing with a linear storytelling structure and bouncing things around in time as the plot unfolds. The  audience is required to concentrate -  an almost unheard-of phenomenon in an age of CGI wizardry and instant gratification. Although there are a few moments where you'll be scratching your head, 21 Grams is a gripping drama about loss, grief and the human ability  to endure.

Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Amores Perros) sets the story in an unnamed US town, where the lives of three vastly different people are brought together by tragedy. Sean Penn plays Paul, a teacher with a heart that is failing him; Naomi Watts (above) gives us Christine, a former drug addict and now happily married mother of two; and Benicio Del Toro is an ex-crim-turned-Christian named Jack.

One poor  judgment by Jack throws all their lives into a spin, and slowly draws them together. In their separate ways, each is forced to deal with grief and guilt - and each produces a stunning performance.

Best of all is Watts - so good in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001) and even more mesmerising here. We feel her pain, and there are moments when she expresses such unbridled emotion  it is almost too hard to watch. An Oscar nomination has followed, and it will be a shame if she misses out - it may well be the role by which her career is defined.

It almost goes without saying these days that you can rely on Penn and Del Toro to lift anything they're involved in. Here, Penn has the lesser of the roles but again stamps it with his class, while Del Toro, all furrowed brow and inner torment, does amazing things with just the slightest shrug of his shoulders, or slouch of his step. He, too, has been deservedly Oscar nominated.

21 Grams, then, is a film full of feeling, one that at times is wrought with despair. In fracturing his narrative, Inarritu has forgone the easy option. Perhaps he thought all that grief would be too much in a continuous stream. And while we lose a little because of this, it is a riveting experience just the same.

21 Grams opens today.



21 Grams