I had no interest in seeing "21 Grams." I went to the theater to see "Mystic River," another movie I wasn't really interested in seeing, but since that movie got nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, I had to make sure that I saw it before the Oscars were handed out (every year, I make sure to see every Best Picture nominee by the time the winners are announced). Well, "Mystic River" ended up being sold out, so rather than having wasted a trip, I decided to see the movie that was starting five minutes later, and that movie was "21 Grams."
I like this movie, but I had problems with it. The story's interesting, it's got great acting, and it's well-directed, but I had an issue with the way this movie manipulates time. The non-linear story is told like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and it takes a while to get an understanding of what's going on. Throughout the movie, you get different pieces, and each piece is from a different point in time. Time manipulation is done a lot in movies, like with "Memento," "Pulp Fiction," "Irreversible," "Citizen Kane," and many others. The thing is, in all of those movies, there's a reason for the time manipulation, there's a point to it. In this movie, it just seems like a stunt, and it makes the movie hard to get into. Eventually, the pieces came together more clearly, the movie started to make more sense, and it was easier for me to get into. Unfortunately, by that time, I was wondering if it was all worth it.
I walked into this movie having no idea what it was about. The title had me thinking that it was about drugs, but even though there are drugs used in the movie, it's not about drugs. The title makes reference to the belief that when a human being dies, no matter his or her size, that human being loses precisely 21 grams. Apparently, there were scientific experiments conducted by a Massachusetts doctor in 1907 that proved this. If it's true, what happens to those 21 grams? Is it the soul leaving the body? Many people think so. At any rate, despite what the title makes reference to, the movie isn't really about that either. The movie is about a horrific car accident, the three stories about how it affects the lives of three different people, and how the stories intersect. That's as much as I'll say about it.
The three key characters are played by Sean Penn, Naomi Watts (she starred in "Mulholland Dr." and "The Ring"), and Benicio Del Toro (he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in "Traffic"). All three of them are excellent, with Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro getting Oscar nominations for their performances in this film. Sean Penn didn't get an Oscar nomination here, but that's okay, because he got one for "Mystic River." And he'll probably win it.
"21 Grams" was directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, and this is only his second feature film. His first was "Amores Perros," a movie that also had three stories that centered around a car accident. Trust me, though, the two movies are very different. As for the script, it was written by Guillermo Arriaga, who also wrote "Amores Perros." I've seen both movies, and the writer and the director are both very talented. They might just be a tad pretentious, though. Anyway, I probably prefer "Amores Perros," and if you can deal with subtitles, I highly recommend watching it.
In the end, "21 Grams" is a good movie made by a lotta talented people, but they tried a little too hard. It's not a bad movie at all, I did enjoy it (as much as one can enjoy such a depressing movie), but I'm not convinced that the time manipulation was anything more than an exercise in pretentiousness.
Scale of 1-10: 7