THE MESSENGER: The Film Babble Blog Review

THE MESSENGER (Dir. Oren Moverman, 2009)


There have been many movies in which we see Army men appear at folks' homes to give notice of the deaths of soldiers. It is usually a brief scene with little spoken, but here these men, in the form of Ben Foster as a Staff Sgt. recently deployed from Iraq, and Woody Harrelson as a Captain whose war was Desert Storm, get their own movie.

Under Harrelson's gruff mentoring, Foster learns quickly that a stint as a member of the Casualty Notification service can be as almost as wrenching and painful as front line combat.

Harrelson deals with this by going by strict protocol. He sternly tells Foster to speak only to the next of kin and avoid physical contact: "In case you feel like offering a hug or something - don't". Foster replies "I'm not going to be offering any hugs, sir."

Foster's life in the downtime is pretty dire. He is love with a girl named Kelly (Jena Malone) who is marrying somebody else and he spends his time in his dark dumpy apartment drinking while blasting heavy metal music. He becomes infatuated with housewife Samantha Morton to whom he has delivered bad news.

Morton takes the news of her dead husband reasonably well, even shaking Foster and Harrelson's hands while saying: "I know this can't be easy for you". On their walk away from her, Harrelson calls this response "a first". Foster's infatuation with Morton is initially creepy - he sits in his car watching her through the window and he follows her at the mall. Once he makes contact with her some of the creepiness dissolves but uneasiness remains as they flirt on the faint edge of a relationship.

Morton's eyes hint at a back story that we never hear but we don't need to - the emotional terrain of lives lost and those left behind sets the film's entire tone. Unfortunately this semblance of a plot involving Morton is abandoned for a large chunk of THE MESSENGER.

Foster and Harrelson go off and get drunk, get in a fight, and crash former flame Malone's reception in a pointless display of untamed testosterone for too much of the sloppy narrative. This is a shame because Morton's scenes are the most moving. There are some other powerful passages in this film, mostly in the first half's house calls (Steve Buscemi has an intense cameo as a heartbroken father of a fallen son), but the film is too disjointed and detached to have the searing impact it aims for.

Moverman's movie just glosses the surface of the psyche of these disturbed men. Foster has proven time and time again that he has the chops to create fully realized characters - witness Six Feet Under and his scene stealing turn in 3:10 TO YUMA - but this soldier is just a sketch and so is its story. As a supporting player, Harrelson is on more solid ground but still suffers from familiarity - the older brother feel of his character is not unlike his turn in ZOMBIELAND.

Though I wasn't feeling it, THE MESSENGER is sure to be regarded as a noble effort. Its attempt to delve into this tense territory is admirable and its sincere tone is intact throughout its running time, but I was too often distracted by its shrugging sensibility in place of a statement.

Audiences of late have tended to stay away from downer Iraq war related film fare. This time out it's going to be especially hard to blame them.

More later...

Serious Series Addiction: The Wire, Lost, & The Prisoner (1967)

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Despite this being “Film Babble Blog” I do babble about TV shows every now and then. This is one of those times.

I had only 2 New Year’s resolutions this year – to exercise more and to finish all 5 seasons of The Wire. I dug my wife’s old exercise bike out of the garage and set it in front of the TV so I could do both. I had begun The Wire sometime last year but put it on the back burner, not because I didn’t like it but because of the many movies that were ahead of it on my list of priorities.

After hearing so many folks refer to it as “the greatest TV series ever” I decided it was time to fully see what all the fuss is about. Over the last few weeks I’ve been pedaling away on the bike devouring one episode after another of David Simon’s exemplary Baltimore crime drama.

I am now on season 5 episode 4 and have lost over 10 pounds in the process.

I learned that a friend of mine was also making his way through The Wire after he got the full series as a Christmas gift. Talking to him on IM he spoke of other friends that were catching the bug as well.

Then, just this week, Onion AV head writer Nathan Rabin posted a piece for their ongoing “Better Late Than Never” feature about finally watching the show’s first season so it seems the show is slowly but surely searing its way into our collective pop culture psyche.

If you’ve never seen The Wire – it can be a daunting undertaking because it’s very complex with a lot of characters and can be hard to follow at first. It seemingly gives equal time to the good, the bad, and the ugly from sleazy politicians to the cops on the beat right down to the lowest level druggie scum with a level of authenticity that’s astounding. It stands with The Sopranos as a novelistic epic and as one of the most engrossingly addictive shows ever.

The Wire isn’t the only show I’ve been pedaling to recently. Since I’ve had to wait for discs of it to come in the mail from Netflix I’ve been checking out what’s available now on Instant.

A Life Of Quiet Desperation Fashionably Rendered

A SINGLE MAN (Dir. Tom Ford, 2009)

College professor George Falconer (Colin Firth) lives his life in a neat orderly manner. Every item is his home is arranged appropriately and every piece of clothing he wears is impeccably pressed.

Firth is living what Thoreau called a life of "quiet desperation" (a quotation our lead is undoubtedly aware of and not just because he teaches English) ever since his lover Jim (Matthew Goode - seen in flashbacks) of 16 years died in an automobile accident 8 months previous. It's Los Angeles 1962, in the days after the Cuban missile crisis, and the influence of beat culture is strong on Firth's students, but the fear of war and total annihilation is stronger. Firth's inner torment distances him from the communal worries of the day. From the outset of the film we see that he has decided to get through the routine of one last day before he takes his own life. He buys bullets for his handgun and tries to figure the best way to kill himself without leaving too big a mess for his maid.

Firth's dignity and poise is intact as he flirts with a Spanish hustler (Jon Kortajaren) in a liquor store parking lot and as he converses with one of his students (Nicholas Hoult) who may be interested in more than class consultation.

However Firth does lose his well cultivated composure during a dinner visit with long-time friend and ex-lover Charly (Julianne Moore) who has had a thing for him for years. Moore ponders the relationship he had with Jim; "wasn't it really just a substitute for something else?" Firth jumps up and exclaims: "There is no substitute for Jim anywhere!" 

There is a washed out quality to the film - grey grainy tones make up most shots but color rushes in with red hues heightened when sensuality is implied. With such subtle touches abounding, it's a definitive "art film" that's an impressive debut for a Fashion Designer best known for magazine layouts. Firth's performance is an intensely nuanced balance of grace and pain. It's some of the sharpest acting out there now and it will be shocking if he's not nominated. 

Maybe not an Oscar, but Ford's direction deserves notice too for it recalls the work of Julian Schnabel while showing its own promise in illustrative invention. Although a bit slow paced, A SINGLE MAN has its indulgences in check and is a quietly absorbing work of refined beauty. It's a passionate portrait of grief that knows that there isn't a substitute for a lost lover any more than there is a substitute for life.

More later...