21 Grams
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| 21 Grams | |
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| Directed by | Alejandro González Iñárritu |
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| Produced by | Alejandro González Iñárritu, Robert Salerno |
| Written by | Guillermo Arriaga |
| Starring | Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio del Toro |
| Music by | Gustavo Santaolalla |
| Editing by | Stephen Mirrione |
| Distributed by | Focus Features |
| Release date(s) | September 5, 2003 |
| Running time | 124 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | ~ US$20,000,000 |
21 Grams is a 2003 film drama directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and written by Guillermo Arriaga. It stars Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Caroline Belina and Benicio del Toro.
Like Arriaga's and González Iñárritu's previous movie, Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams is a movie which interweaves several plot lines, this time around the consequences of a tragic automobile accident. Penn plays a critically ill academic mathematician, Watts plays a grief-stricken mother, and del Toro plays a born-again Christian ex-convict whose faith is sorely tested in the aftermath of the accident.
The movie is presented in a non-linear arrangement where the lives of the characters are depicted before and after the accident. The three main characters each have 'past', 'present' and 'future' story threads, which are shown as non-linear fragments that punctuate elements of the overall story, all imminently coming toward each other and coalescing as the story progresses.
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[edit] Plot
As previously mentioned, the film is edited in a non-linear manner. The following is a linear, chronological summary of the plot:
Jack Jordan (Benicio del Toro) is a former convict who is using his new-found religious faith to recover from drug addiction and alcoholism.
Paul Rivers (Sean Penn) is a mathematics professor with a fatal heart condition. Unless he receives a new heart from an organ donor, he will have less than one month to live. Paul's wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) wants him to donate his sperm so she can have his baby, even if he dies. The two are civil to one another, yet distant.
Cristina Peck (Naomi Watts) is also a recovering drug addict, and now lives a normal suburban life with a supportive husband and two children. She is a loving mother and active swimmer, who has left her days of drugs and booze behind.
These three separate stories/characters become tied together one evening when Jack kills Cristina's husband and children in a hit-and-run accident. Her husband's heart is donated to Paul, who begins his recovery.
Cristina is devastated by the loss and returns to drugs (2CB and ketamine) and alcohol. Paul is eager to begin normal life again, but he hesitantly agrees to his wife's idea of surgery and artificial insemination as a last-ditch effort to get pregnant. During consultations with a doctor before the surgery, Paul learns that his wife had undergone an abortion after they had separated in the past. Angered, Paul ends the relationship. He becomes very inquisitive about whose heart he has. He learns from a source that the heart belonged to Cristina's husband, and begins to follow the widowed Cristina around town.
Jack is stricken with guilt following the accident. Despite his wife's protests to keep quiet and conceal his guilt, Jack tells her that his "duty is to God" and turns himself in. While incarcerated, he claims that God had betrayed him and, soon enough, loses his will to live. He tries unsuccessfully to commit suicide. He is released after Cristina declines to press charges, as she realizes that putting Jack in prison will not bring her family back. When Jack is released, he is unable to reincorporate himself into normal family life, and instead leaves home to live as a transient. He works a manual labor job and defaces his Christian tattoos with a knife.
Paul finds an opportunity to meet Cristina and eventually reveals how the two of them are connected. Desperately needing one another, they begin to develop a relationship. Though Paul has a new heart, his body is rejecting the surgery, and his outlook is grim. As Cristina begins to dwell more on her changed life and the death of her girls, she continually focuses on a desire to exact revenge on Jack. She goads Paul into agreeing to murder him.
Paul meets with the person who originally found Cristina for him. Paul also purchases a gun from him and learns that Jack is living in a motel. Paul and Cristina check into the motel where Jack is also staying. When Jack is walking alone, Paul grabs him and leads him out into a clearing at gunpoint with the intention of killing him. Paul is unable to kill Jack, who himself is confused, shaking and pleading during the event. Paul tells Jack to "just disappear" then returns back to the motel, lying to Cristina about Jack's death. Later that night, while they are sleeping, Paul and Cristina are awakened by a noise outside their door. It's Jack, who, still consumed by guilt and inner torment, orders Paul to kill him and end his misery. There is a struggle, and Cristina blind-sides Jack and begins to beat him with a wooden lamp. Paul has a heart attack and shoots himself to avoid dying from asphyxia.
Jack and Cristina rush Paul to the hospital. Jack tells the police that he shot Paul, but he is released. The conflict between Cristina and Jack remains unresolved (they meet in the waiting room after Paul's death, but do not speak). Cristina learns in the hospital that she is pregnant. After Paul's death, Cristina is seen tentatively preparing for the new child and Jack is shown returning home to his family.
[edit] Cast
- Sean Penn — Paul Rivers
- Naomi Watts — Cristina Peck
- Danny Huston — Michael
- Benicio Del Toro — Jack Jordan
- Charlotte Gainsbourg — Mary Rivers
- John Rubinstein — Gynecologist
- Eddie Marsan — Reverend John
- Melissa Leo — Marianne Jordan
- Marc Musso — Freddy (as Marc Thomas Musso)
- Clea DuVall — Claudia
[edit] Trivia
The film was shot almost completely with hand-held cameras.
The film was shot in chronological order (even though it's not in chronological order in its final cut.)
Naomi Watts accepted the role without reading the script first.
Katrin Cartlidge originally cast as Marianne but she died shortly before filming was to start. Melissa Leo, who had previously auditioned for the role, was invited to audtion again and won the part.
In the scene where Paul tells Cristina that he got her husband's heart implanted, he says that the surgical intervention took place October 11th (10+11=21).
[edit] Awards
The movie received nominations at the 2003 Academy Awards for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Benicio del Toro) and Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Naomi Watts).
Other:
[edit] Title
The title of the movie comes from the work of Dr. Duncan MacDougall, who in the early 1900s sought to measure the weight purportedly lost by a human body when the soul departed the body upon death. MacDougall weighed dying patients in an attempt to prove that the soul was material, tangible and thus measurable. These experiments are widely considered to have little, if any, scientific merit, and MacDougall's results varied considerably from 21 grams, but for some people this figure has become synonymous with the measure of a soul's mass.[1]
[edit] See Also
- Hyperlink cinema - the film style of using multiple inter-connected story lines.
[edit] References
[edit] External Links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: 21 Grams |
- Official website
- 21 Grams at the Internet Movie Database
- Article on the cinematography of 21 Grams from American Cinematographer
- The science behind 21 Grams
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