21 Grams Back to Index

Imdb Rating: 7.9
Genre: Drama
Directed: Guillermo Arriaga (written by)
Country: USA
Year: 2003
Duration: 124 min

Media: Hot stuff
Recommended by zMin

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Actors: Sean Penn (as Paul Rivers), Naomi Watts (as Cristina Peck), Danny Huston (as Michael), Carly Nahon (as Cathy), Claire Pakis (as Laura), Benicio Del Toro (as Jack Jordan), Nick Nichols (as Boy), Charlotte Gainsbourg (as Mary Rivers), John Rubinstein (as Gynecologist), Eddie Marsan (as Reverend John), Loyd Keith Salter (as Fat Man), Antef A. Harris (as Basketball Guy), Melissa Leo (as Marianne Jordan), Marc Musso (as Freddy (as Marc Thomas Musso)), Teresa Delgado (as Gina)

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Description: "How much does life weigh?"

A freak accident brings together a critically ill mathematician (Penn), a grieving mother (Watts) and a born-again ex-con (Del Toro).

Comment: This movie is very, very good. Unlike some others I do not think the unchronological storytelling hurts the movie, on the contrary I think that the pieces that the viewer has to put together in order to get the picture of the whole story just make it more interesting.

On the other hand, no matter how good the movie actually is it is one step short of masterpiece. It is like you are climbing to heaven but you cannot make it over the last step. The story is good, the filming is good, the acting is good, but there is still SOMETHING missing for this movie to be added to my hall of all time faves. Maybe it is the music, this film does not have a strong score, maybe all the components do not add up well together... It is hard to describe why, but I was not as stunned as I usually am after watching movies I rate at 10.

Thus, I was deciding between 8 a 9, finally I voted 9 but it is a rather weak one.

IMDB TRIVIA FOR 21 GRAMS (2003):
- 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).
- In the original screenplay, Cristina's last name was Beck instead of Peck.
- The poem by the Venezuelan writer that Paul ('Sean Penn' ) quotes when he's in the restaurant with Cristina ('Naomi Watts' ) is "La Tierra Giró para Acercarnos" by Eugenio Montejo.
- During the scene where Jack Jordan tries to hang himself, the over-weight prisoner who saves him has a large tattoo of the name "Maria Eladia" on his chest. This is Alejandro González Ińárritu's wife, to whom the film is dedicated.
- The title comes from the work of Dr. Duncan MacDougall of Haverhill, Massachusetts in the early twentieth century. MacDougall weighed dying subjects, in experiments of extremely dubious scientific value, believing that he was proving that the soul was material and measurable. His results in fact varied wildly, but 21 grams has come to be believed as the accepted measure of a soul's weight.
- 'Naomi Watts' accepted the role without reading the script first.
- When Paul finds the photos of Cristina and her husband in a book, the book he is looking at is "Cruising Paradise", a collection of 40 stories about solitude and loss by playwright-actor Sam Shepard.
- The story in Cruising Paradise that the pictures are marking is called "The Hero is in His Kitchen". It revolves around a payphone conversation between two men, one in Tucson, Arizona and the other in Los Angeles, California. One of the last things said on the last page of the story (the one the pictures are marking) is "Don't buckle under the weight of a heavy heart!"
- The Spanish-language dedication to María Eladia at the end, "pues cuando ardió la pérdida, reverdecieron sus maizales," translates to "for when the loss burned, their cornfields became green again."

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