Review of In the Valley of Elah (2007) by Chris M — 04 Sep 2011
Lots of conflicting thoughts on this. So let's do the easy bit first.
Tommy Lee Jones is fantastic. His intense, brooding focus sustains the drama throughout, and he is the old-school military hero whose flaws are painfully exposed and whose world-view is slowly and brutally stripped away. He almost makes it look easy. But just watch how his face changes through the film. Amazing. He deserved his Oscar nomination, and his performance is every bit as good as Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood.
The supporting cast are generally very good, and the characters are interesting with hardly any stock hero-villain stereotypes. Susan Sarandon and TLJ share a couple of heart-breaking scenes. There are a couple of exceptions, mainly in the Police Dept. I just didn't really believe Charlize Theron's performance, and the contrast against her sexist colleagues was pretty clunky.
The writing is often surprising and subtle. The sporadic use of fractured mobile phone footage offers hints at the truth that help peel away Hank Deerfield's hopes. The military characters are great, often underwritten. The Texan environment is stark and desolate - not unlike our perceptions of Iraq: low-rise bars, motels & diners engulfed by swirling dust clouds. Dark, long corridoors and anonymous barrack rooms remind us of the soldiers going house-to-house in Fallujah. The score is understated, brooding and ominous.
And yet... despite all this subtlety, classy acting and writing, the final 20 mninutes let me down. It seems to want to try and bring all the disparate threads CLEARLY TOGETHER SO YOU ARE REALLY SURE YOU'VE GOT THE MESSAGE THAT WAR IS RUBBISH AND RUINS EVERYONE, NOT JUST THE SOLDIERS BUT ALSO EVERYONE ELSE.
The scene that shows you what did happen in Iraq. Reconstructing the phonecall from Mike to his Father. The Flag. All of these things had been hinted at, and yet the Paul Haggis seems unwilling or unable to let the audience imagine these things for themselves. Remember how horrible Se7en was for what you DIDN'T see... he lays it out on the slab then forces you to look. Shame.
But don't let that detract from the excellence of TLJ and the cast, or from the overall seriousness and quality. Recommended.
This review of In the Valley of Elah (2007) was written by Chris M on 04 Sep 2011.
In the Valley of Elah has generally received positive reviews.
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