Review of 21 Grams (2003) by Oscar T — 22 Feb 2015

Confused, tired, disappointed, left hanging, that is how I feel about 21 Grams. Another feeling I had was a headache from trying to figure out all the supposed hidden meanings, and the closing monologue.

The back-and-forth-in-time scene sequence didn't work for me. I don't necessarily believe movies should be linear (two of my favourite movies are Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, and they are not linear in their scene sequence), but 21 Grams overdoes the non-linearity. I kept feeling like I was cheating, as if I was skipping forward in the movie. A linear storytelling would have worked a lot better, and made me feel more surprised when the story took a twist.

There were too many loose ends in the movie (I won't mention them, to avoid spoiling the movie for others). I just felt like I was left hanging.

I couldn't grasp the implication of the 21 grams concept, even though I thought I understood the idea before the movie started. I left the movie feeling confused, and quite bitter, as I felt ripped off as the supposed deeper meaning was fairly lame or unfathomable, and the movie fairly pretentious.