|
21
Grams is the new film from the Academy Award-nominated
director of Amores perros, Alejandro
González Iñárritu. It is a story of
hope and humanity, of resilience and survival.
Whether you fear death or not, it comes, and at that moment
your body becomes twenty-one grams lighter. Is it a person's
soul that constitutes those twenty-one grams? Is that weight
carried by those who survive us?
The lead actors in 21 Grams are three-time Academy Award
nominee Sean Penn, Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro,
and award-winning actress Naomi Watts. The actors were all
honored at the film's world premiere at the 2003 Venice International
Film Festival, where Sean Penn won Best Actor and Benicio
Del Toro and Naomi Watts earned the Audience Awards for Best
Actor and Actress.
21 Grams, written by Guillermo Arriaga (Amores perros),
explores the emotionally and physically charged existences
of three people over a period of several months. An accident
unexpectedly throws their lives and destinies together, in
a story that will take them to the heights of love, the depths
of revenge, and the promise of redemption.
College professor Paul Rivers (Sean Penn) and his wife Mary
(Charlotte Gainsbourg) find their union precariously balanced
between life and death. He is mortally ill and awaiting a
heart transplant, while she hopes to become pregnant with
his child through artificial insemination. Cristina Peck
(Naomi Watts), having matured since her reckless past, is
a beloved older sister to Claudia (Clea DuVall), a good wife
to Michael (Danny Huston) and loving mother to two little
girls. Her family radiates hope and joy. Much farther down
the socioeconomic scale, ex-con Jack Jordan (Benicio Del
Toro) and his wife Marianne (Melissa Leo) struggle to provide
for their two children while Jack reaffirms his commitment
to religion.
A tragic accident that claims several lives places these
couples in each other's orbit. In the aftermath, Paul confronts
his own mortality, Cristina takes action to come to terms
with her present and perhaps her future, and Jack's faith
is put to the test. If spiritual equilibrium is to be regained
by any one of them, it could come at great cost to the others.
Yet the will to live, and the instinct to reach out to another
person for support, remains ever-present among them all.
www.21-grams.com |
