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Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this isn't an Adam Sandler comedy. Rather, it's a drama about a man's ongoing response to losing his family on 9/11. For much of the film, Sandler's character is ragged-looking, distraught, aggressive, and foul-mouthed -- though he can also be charming in a childish way. His visits to a therapist are mostly sad, as is his eventual lengthy description of his loss. There's lots of swearing and derogatory slang, as well as discussion of suicide (one nearly successful attempt is shown), insanity, institutionalization, and oral sex. Some yelling, pushing, and hitting takes place during a fight, and minor drinking in bar leads to an argument.
Families can talk about the lingering effects of 9/11 on our culture. How have the media treated the event? How do tragic stories and images help us work through emotional wounds? How does Donna's trauma affect her differently than Charlie's affects him? Why do you think Charlie is so fond of popular culture that reminds him of his youth (comics, '80s bands, video games, etc.)? How does the media help define an era?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
"He's completely lost." When Alan (Don Cheadle) discovers Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler) shuffling on a New York sidewalk, it's obvious that his onetime college roommate needs help. But even though Charlie is suffering dislocation and depression after losing his wife and daughters in a plane on 9/11, he's not the only character in REIGN OVER ME who could use a sense of purpose and connection.
A meditation on loss, Mike Binder's film lines up a whole series of victims, including Alan, who feels that his career as a dentist has lurched out of control (his office partners bully him) and that his marriage to Janeane (Jada Pinkett Smith) is disappointingly unequal (he tends to do what she says). Though Alan is clearly a good father to his two daughters, he's feeling unfulfilled, repeatedly seeking free advice from Angela (Liv Tyler), a therapist who works in his office building (she rightly guesses that the "friend" whose frustrations Alan describes is really him).
His renewed friendship with Charlie inspires Alan to act "wild": He rides a scooter, plays video games, eats Chinese takeout, and even (gasp!) goes to a Mel Brooks marathon and stays out all night. The boys are working through their issues, each encouraging the other as they spend long hours in what Alan deems "Charlie World" ("It's a sea of sadness," he tells Janeane). As Alan grows more confident, Charlie seems more on the verge of being able to face his repressed recent past -- which the movie is rather too helpful in illustrating, as if viewers couldn't understand his feelings without seeing soft-focus, happy-times images of the intact family.
As hard as Reign Over Me works to complicate Charlie's grief and rage (he's alternately twitchy and aggressive, frightening and pathetic), it offers a troubling, reductive contrast in one of Alan's patients, Donna (Saffron Burrows). Her "female" response to her own traumatic loss isn't edifying or sympathetic. Instead, Donna is driven into hypersexual stalker-spasms (she repeatedly offers Alan oral sex in his office). Her aggressiveness scares Alan and intrigues Charlie, who is mostly lost in an adolescent fixation on her breasts -- at least until she becomes his means to redemption.
Fans might want to see Binder's previous film, The Upside of Anger, as well as other movies dealing with loss and trauma, like The Fisher King, The Great New Wonderful, and Return to Me.
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Sexual ContentWoman offers her dentist oral sex in his office, then stalks him, returning to see him and threatening him with a harassment lawsuit (discussion of this problem includes body part names and slangy words and phrases like "penis," "she wants to do down on me," "she wants to blow you"); when Charlie visits a therapist, he talks about her "tits." |
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ViolenceReferences to 9/11 (none visual) make Charlie and other characters upset; a character's father dies, causing grief; video game shooting, exploding, crashing; Charlie pushes and hits Alan; Charlie pulls a gun on a cabbie, hoping that nearby cops will shoot him ("suicide by cop") -- instead, they tackle him. |
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LanguageFrequent uses of "f--k" and "s--t", plus "ass," "asshole," "damn," "sucks," "bitch," "p---y," "chrissake," and "hell." A lengthy barrage of insults includes repeated uses of "faggot." Other phrases include "suck my ass, retard!" and "he's a giant dork!" A movie-within-the-movie screening of Blazing Saddles includes a bleeped-out series of jokes using the "N" word (the audience laughs at the jokes). |
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Social BehaviorVarious traumas produce various effects: a widower behaves "badly," using inappropriate language and aggression with his friend; his in-laws try to have him committed; a woman becomes obsessed with sex; and a suffocated husband becomes angry. All reconcile, neatly, by film's end. |
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CommercialismStarbucks, Shadow of the Colossus video game, Colonel Sanders (stand up display in an apartment), Captain America, many mentions of bands (Pretenders, The Who, Bruce Springsteen) and a Mel Brooks marathon. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoBeer drinking in bar, wine drinking in restaurant. |
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