21 Grams (R, 2003)

In 21 GRAMS, a terrible collision shatters more than the lives of three people. It shatters the very narrative of the story itself. Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu conveys the fractured disorientation of the three main characters with clusters of brief scenes that act as a mosaic, gradually revealing what happened in that devastating moment and how it affected the events and emotions that followed, even the impact on the very identities of the people involved. Paul (Sean Penn) is dying. His heart is failing. His wife wants to find a way to have his child. Jack (Benicio Del Toro) is struggling. He has come out of prison with a fierce new religious faith that has his wife and children a little uneasy. Christina (Naomi Watts) is happy. She has overcome a substance abuse problem and is living happily with her husband and daughters. Then a corner is turned. A driver -- maybe in too much of a hurry to get to a birthday party, maybe having had a drink -- hits three pedestrians. Lives are lost. Another life is restored. Another is devastated. Is there a way to go on?

Penn gives one of the most sensitive performances of his career. He usually plays characters who are not as smart as he is, but here he is completely convincing as a math professor, and he shows us an extraordinary range of subtle and complex emotions. Watts and Del Toro are also outstanding. Inarritu uses a hand-held camera and directs with a simple, intimate, very pure feeling similar in style to the Dogma 95 movies.

Studio: Focus Features
Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Naomi Watts, Sean Penn
Genre: Drama
Run time: 125 minutes
Theatrical release: November 20, 2003
DVD release: March 15, 2004
MPAA Rating: R
MPAA explanation: language, sexuality, some violence and drug use.