April 04, 2010

Brothers (2009).

Last week I had the opportunity of seeing this movie by talented Irish director Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, In The Name of the Father, In America), but the main hook for the audience is the amazing cast of Tobey Maguire, Natalie Portman and Jake Gyllenhaal. This movie is a remake of a Danish movie of the same name from 2004 and directed by Susanne Bier.

I found it interesting, a great actor's work that tells the story of a captain programmed, deprogrammed and then eating by the guilt, a wife that travels through widow life and back to a distorted version of her marriage and a ex-convict, brother of the captain that redeem himself by being the helping hand that eases the pain of the wife and her daughters. So many ingredients in the soup. But it worked for me.

Let's go first for the story. Spoiler included, read under your own counsel. Sam (Tobey Maguire) is a marine ready to go back to Afghanistan but first he picks his brother Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) from prison. At home, Grace, his wife (Natalie Portman) is waiting for them with his two little daughters. Later the parents of the two brothers meets Tommy with anger and reproaches.

Captain Sam joins the army and his helicopter is taken down by taliban forces. All the unit is considered dead, but truth is that Sam and a soldier, Joe, are still alive and under custody of the afghan soldiers. They are tortured and in the end Joe is considered as useless, forcing Sam to kill him or die. Sam had survived so far as strong as it could be, but this event broke him to pieces. In the end, the allied forces save him.

Meanwhile, Tommy returns to his un-orderly life. He asks for help to Grace. When he realizes that he is a burden instead of the helping brother, he changes radically and with the aid of some friends transforms the obsolete Grace's kitchen into a modern one. Not only this, but he befriends his nieces turning into a great uncle. Tommy's father seems to change also his appreciation of his son.

When the traumatized Sam arrives home, everything changes. Sam lives like a living dead and Grace feels that the marriage is a nightmare. Their daughters are reticent, almost aggressive against their father, that suspects that his brother and his wife had an affair while he was away. But it is the guilt of his crime that's corrupting him to the bones.

Sam looses completely his mind and destroys the kitchen, almost kills his brother and almost commit suicide. He is held in a psychiatric hospital and tells Grace his killing, while telling her that he is never allowed to live a normal life. That is the main difference between this movie and the Danish film. In Bier's version, it is the aggression to the police that takes the soldier into custody while in Sheridan's Sam is not in jail. Perhaps there is more parallelism between Sam story (beginning at the peak of his life and going to hell in jail at the end while Tommy redeems himself from jail to a normal, caring life). In my opinion, Sheridan's version allows the audience to form their own conclusion: Sam is free and it is only sustained by the burden of his own acts. He is alive, yes, but at what price. Coming back has turn his life and his caring ones into a nightmare.

One interesting movie with many powerful moments that are really worth seeing.