I’ve heard a Zen philosophical statement saying ’’All of life is a preparation for death’’. Although I don’t want to subscribe to the pessimistic nature of that thought, there must be some veracity in it for people to be actually following it.
21 grams is a movie which tells the story of how the lives of three people become intricately intertwined when events in their lives bring them together. The movie features Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio Del Toro, Charlotte Gainsbourg among others. It has been directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and written by Guillermo Arriaga.
Paul Rivers (Penn) is a mathematics professor who’s terminally ill and desperately needs an organ transplant. Christina Peck (Watts) is a former drug addict who’s now married to an architect and is the mother of two girls.Jack Jordan (Del Toro)is a former convict who’s been in and out of prison several times.
The movie begins with Rivers in a hospital bed trying to guess as to which of the patients in the beds near him is going to die first. The scene then moves to Peck sniffing cocaine and Jordan being preachy to a juvenile delinquent about the importance of having Jesus in his life.
Rivers has been re-united with his wife Mary (Gainsbourg) who looks after him in the hope of having his child by artificial insemination. Peck is seen baking cookies with her two daughters, waiting for her husband to come home and Jordan is seen trying to reform himself by dedicating himself to God and in search of making a honest living as a caddie.
Jordan gets fired from the club, because his tattoos are not deemed acceptable by the club members and his manager. He tries to force his extreme religious belief on his family and the scene where he imposes his will on his children is very well shot.
Meanwhile Peck receives a call regarding an accident involving her husband and her children. She goes to the hospital where the doctor tells her that both her daughters could have been saved, if they had been brought in earlier. She’s asked to sign a form to approve the donation of her husband’s heart, who has been declared brain dead.
The scene then cuts to Rivers getting a phone call from the hospital regarding the availability of a heart and Jordan going home to his wife, confessing that he ’’took a turn too fast, hit a man and his children and fled from the scene’’. Peck is distraught, Rivers is happy because he’s been given a new lease of life and Jordan is tormented by guilt.
Rivers tries to find out as to who’s heart he was given through unofficial channels and is given Peck’s address. He follows Peck all day long, trying to tell her that he’s got her husband’s heart and to thank her for it. Jordan turns himself in, in spite of his wife’s pleas that she and her children need him the most. His faith is tested while in jail and he blames himself entirely for the accident, with all the hatred directed towards the God he trusted.
Peck is emotionally shattered by her loss and turns back to drugs, seeking some solace. The funeral scene where her father says that ’’Life goes on..’’ is hard for her to accept. This scene is very well made and Watts is exceptional as the inconsolable wife and mother. Rivers follows her around and befriends her, with Peck and Rivers eventually becoming lovers, much to the chagrin of Mary.
Jordan tries to run away from the life that he leads, taking up a job in a remote cement plant, living in a dinghy motel. Rivers tracks Jordan down, promising Peck to kill Jordan in retribution for the killing of her (Peck’s) family. Rivers also faces complications after the transplant, where he’s told that his body didn’t accept the new heart and if he has to live, he needs another transplant. He refuses to die in a hospital room numb to the pain of death.
The ending of the movie is complex where it shows how the mental state of people influences their actions. The movie also is a bit of a maze, because unless you watch the entire movie, the line between the scenes showing the past and the present is blurred.
All of the cast have turned in some excellent performances, especially Benicio Del Toro. The story is one where you desperately need some positive thing to happen, but it deceives you by making sure that redemption and hope are as elusive as the theme ’’Life goes on..’’ is esoteric.
The director has made another movie of the same calibre ’’Amores Perros’’(Loosely translated ’’ Love’s a dog/bitch’’) which tells the story of how an accident affects people from different economic backgrounds in Mexico.
The questions asked by Penn’s character at the end of the movie are very pertinent and debatable until the end of time. The movie has a personal feel to it and also seems very indifferent in some scenes.