21 Grams (2003)

Even devotees of non-linear story telling movies might have some difficulty with this picture. The very early sequences of the movie tend to leave one confused and disoriented, seeming as if the principal characters have an established relationship to each other. That idea gets quickly negated as the film moves forward, and you're left scratching your head over something you might have just seen that doesn't make sense any more. It goes on like this for a while until the pieces of the puzzle eventually fall into place, by which time you begin to understand that none of the central characters is particularly appealing and the kind of people you want to root for. A good part of that is owed to the exceptional performances of Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Benicio del Toro, all of whom demonstrate a wide range of thought and emotion demonstrated by their characters. Naomi Watts in particular delivers an outstanding performance in the role of a widow who's lost not only her husband, but two young daughters as well, in an accident that eventually brings all three figures together in an astonishing climax. The '21 Grams' the movie's title refers to dates all the way back to a pseudo-scientific experiment done in 1901 by a physician named Duncan MacDougall, who was convinced the human soul had weight, and that it could be measured at the time of death by taking the before and after weights of people about to die. Though the experiment was highly flawed, the result the experimenter came up with has lived on as an urban legend of sorts. Upon thoughtful consideration, that really has nothing to do with the premise of this story, as it's thrown into the script one time for matters of association but with no bearing on anything that actually happened in it. Before watching the film, '21 grams' sounded like it could have referred to a quantity of drugs involved in some fatal overdose scenario, but instead it might be the amount of brain power required to concentrate on the film until it's baffling conclusion. Anyone else wondering whether Sean Penn's character shot himself accidentally or on purpose?

Confused, tired, disappointed, left hanging, that is how I feel about 21 Grams. Another feeling I had was a headache from trying to figure out all the supposed hidden meanings, and the closing monologue.The back-and-forth-in-time scene sequence didn't work for me. I don't necessarily believe movies should be linear (two of my favourite movies are Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, and they are not linear in their scene sequence), but 21 Grams overdoes the non-linearity. I kept feeling like I was cheating, as if I was skipping forward in the movie. A linear storytelling would have worked a lot better, and made me feel more surprised when the story took a twist.There were too many loose ends in the movie (I won't mention them, to avoid spoiling the movie for others). I just felt like I was left hanging.I couldn't grasp the implication of the 21 grams concept, even though I thought I understood the idea before the movie started. I left the movie feeling confused, and quite bitter, as I felt ripped off as the supposed deeper meaning was fairly lame or unfathomable, and the movie fairly pretentious.

It starts slow so if you can bear with it for 1st 20 mins then you will not get chance to even hit a pause button , Its a dynamite.. The screenplay and cinematography is quite unique..U will be puzzled initially saying whats the hell is going around..!! But soon you will realize that 3 stories are running in parallel and stitched together wonderfully. Some scene will make you CRY and some will force you to think about life... The acting of all the characters just fascinating and so REAL...!!For the sake of cinema do not skip this movie if you hear the name 21 GRAMS...

21 grams is an underrated gem with a splendid cast. It is one of the best movies that I've ever seen and is also one of the most original. It has a brilliant cast including Sean Penn, Benicio Del Torro and Naomi Watts. The acting alone is worth the watch but the movie..wow.. 21 grams is a deep movie and will require the watcher's full attention. It won't all make sense until the end because of the way that it is formatted. The movie is so original because it throws random scenes at the screen. One might be from the past..one from the future..etc.. For example, one scene you see Benicio Del Torro in prison, the next in a church, the next as a construction worker. One scene you see Sean Penn bleeding to death, the next smoking, the next driving his car. Now that's what is so original and genius about the movie...it makes you open your mind and the script is brilliantly conceived. You will be scratching your head at times and be like "What is going on?" because the movie's goal is to connect all of these scenes in the end. It makes you watching till the wonderful conclusion. The movie simply shows that fleeing in face of bereavement is as hard as fleeing in the face of death: there's no escape from it. Life just doesn't go on. There is no religion, no hope, no everyday life that can make up for the fact that one person to whom the meaning of our own person was so intrinsically connected is not there any more. Overall rating: 9 out of 10.