Review of Hell and Back Again (2011) by Beau D — 17 Oct 2012

The great genius of the movie is that its plot is non-linear. Scenes of the subject, Nathan Harris, are spliced together both from Afghanistan, and his rural American town. Two simultaneous narratives are thus weaved together; one in Afghanistan, with the fish-out-of-water soldier struggling to adapt to a foreign culture as he careens seemingly inevitably towards injury.

The second shows him after his return to the US, trying and seeming to fail to cope with PTSD, his injuries, and an emerging addiction to painkillers.