Review of In the Valley of Elah (2007) by Dottiec. — 22 Sep 2007

My sister and I just got home from seeing the movie and having coffee after. I think the film shows more than a "predictable" ending! A proud retired military man, a wife beaten down with grief from losing a son, a couple getting by.

This "proud" father sees his son in the light of reality. A young man so changed and having done things his father could never imagined he would be capable of. He had to keep on until he "found" his son and he had to accept what he had become.

He felt partly responsible, he had to hide so much from his wife, I am sure, so to spare her the pain. When Penning said so matter of factly that he stabbed Michael, you knew that they all were changed by what they had seen and done.

It was so powerful the way he just said it..."I stabbed him." As we sat on a bench we struck up a conversation with a 24 year old man who had recently gotten home and discharged from the Army.

We asked him lots of questions and he was quite forthright. He is now estranged from his family because when he came home he couldn't relate right away and they just didn't understand what he had been through.

He does not think we had the right to go in to a "sovereign country" and take down their ruler. He said we don't see reality here. Some areas they hate us and you speed through for your own safety.

I am so happy that he is alive, but he has a lot of healing to do. I think Jones acting was superb and the music haunting. I won't forget this movie.