Review of 21 Grams (2003) by Dawdlingpoet — 08 Oct 2022

This is a sobering, somewhat bleak in tone film about a number of couples affected by one event - their background and so on, Sean Penn gives a good performance I thought, as does Benecio Del Toro. I found the grainy look of the film visually, there's a sort of a grainy look to the film in the way its shot/filmed, a bit distracting and not entirely appealing, although I can sort of see what the filmmaker is getting at.

It's not as gritty a film as you might expect overall - there are bleak moments but there's not a massive amount of bloody violence overall, although there are some sex scenes present. It's quite an emotionally raw film in some ways but its certainly not full of sentimentality or overly sugary sweet.

The characters are fairly well developed and I was interested to see what happened, though I wouldn't say it all made sense to me. I think if your a fan of Sean Penn then it's worth seeing in terms of his performance though.

I feel the film is really, at its heart, about desperation and the lengths people will go to, to do what's right for them. The chronology is a little confusing on ocassion. It becomes quite powerful in the last half an hour or so though.

Yes I'd recommend this film, although it won't appeal to all but its a somewhat thoughtful film with a good cast, so it's worth looking at if it sounds of interest.