UrbanWire

Starring: Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio Del Toro
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu

"They say we all lose 21 grams at the exact moment of our death…" reads the tagline. Apparently, this is the weight of a soul. In 1907, Dr Duncan McDougall devised an experiment where patients on the verge of death were placed on a weighing scale-like bed. When they passed on, their body lost 21 grams. The same experiment was conducted on dogs, which showed no weight loss, allowing us to conclude that dogs don't have souls.

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu returns with 21 Grams, 4 years after the success of his debut movie Amores Perros, which wasn't shown in Singapore. The similarity of both movies is the interconnectivity between the 3 different stories and characters that play on the themes of fate, love, chance, revenge and death.

In 21 Grams, the 3 lead characters are related through an accident. A heart transplant from a man killed in a car accident saves dying professor Paul Rivers (Sean Penn) at the 11th hour. After the transplant, coincidentally, he develops a relationship with an alcoholic widow Christina Peck (Naomi Watts), whose husband and children were killed in that accident. Meanwhile, ex-convict Jack Jordan (Benicio Del Toro) finds work and religion in an attempt to start his life afresh, but he's still riddled with guilt for running down a family (you guessed it - Peck's family) in an accident.

The dark, raw and grainy look in the movie is a result of filming on a handheld camera. Like Chris Nolan's Memento, the scenes are jumbled like a jigsaw puzzle. But what differentiates this movie from Memento is the way the characters are revealed slowly in a teasing non-linear fashion. If Memento is like watching instant replays during a soccer match on TV, 21 Grams is like keeping up with the soccer match while channel surfing. Either way, the audience is kept in suspense.

A third of the movie had past and I was still clueless to the identity of the characters. It didn't help that I was expecting a chronological film and was wondering why Penn was having a heart transplant in a scene and having coffee in the next.

The director's technique in destroying the movie's typical time-space structure and arranging them with no regard for the natural unfolding of time results in some disorientation. However, the riveting performances from the actors are enough to keep me glued.

Praises must be heaped on Watts, Penn and Del Toro for their realistic portrayals of their roles. With such a risky non-Hollywood fare, the clever casting is an important factor in the movie's success. The 3 co-stars show an intensity that brings an extra dimension to their characters. Watts plays a lonely grieving widow to perfection, bringing a sense of innocent vulnerability to the cold-on-the-outside Christina Peck. Penn and Del Toro follow suit with a look of despair in their eyes that instantly holler emptiness.

Penn has been in the critic's good books recently for his role in 21 Grams and especially for upcoming drama Mystic River, the latter for which he recently won Best Actor at the Golden Globes. He has also picked up his 4th Best Actor nomination at the upcoming Oscars. Del Toro should also be looking forward to adding another Best Supporting Actor award to his win in 2000 with Traffic.

Not to be outdone by her male co-stars, Watts also earned her 1st Oscar nomination in the Best Actress category. She broke into Hollywood's A-List 3 years ago with her turn as aspiring actress Betty Elms on Mulholland Dr. and was last seen in James Ivory's Le Divorce. This 35-year-old went for grief support groups and Alcoholic Anonymous meetings to prepare for this role that she accepted immediately from Iñárritu without even reading the script.

With worthy performances from 3 great thespians, this is 1 of those movies that deserve a 2nd watching and is certainly worth more than the weight of a few souls.