21 Grams
| 21 Grams | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Alejandro González Iñárritu |
| Written by | Guillermo Arriaga |
| Produced by | Alejandro González Iñárritu Robert Salerno |
| Starring | Sean Penn Naomi Watts Benicio del Toro |
| Cinematography | Rodrigo Prieto |
| Edited by | Stephen Mirrione |
| Music by | Gustavo Santaolalla |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Focus Features |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 124 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $20 million[2] |
| Box office | $60.4 million[2] |
21 Grams is a 2003 American psychological thriller directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and written by Guillermo Arriaga.[3] The film stars Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Benicio del Toro in lead roles, with Charlotte Gainsbourg, Melissa Leo and Danny Huston in supporting roles. The film is the second entry in Iñárritu and Arriaga's "Trilogy of Death", preceded by Amores perros (2000) and followed by Babel (2006).[4]
21 Grams follows the intertwining lives of three individuals in the aftermath of a tragic hit-and-run accident: a critically ill mathematician (Penn), a grieving mother (Watts), and a born-again ex-convict (Del Toro) whose faith is tested. Using a nonlinear narrative, the film reveals past, present, and future moments from the characters' lives, which slowly coalesce into a unified story.
21 Grams premiered at the 60th Venice International Film Festival on September 5, 2003, followed by a wide release on November 21. The film received positive reviews from critics, with praise directed at Iñárritu's direction, Arriaga's screenplay, and the performances of Watts and Del Toro. It emerged as a moderate commercial success at the box-office, grossing $60.4 million worldwide against a production budget of $20 million.
21 Grams earned Watts and Del Toro nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor, respectively, at several award ceremonies, including the 76th Academy Awards, the 9th Critics' Choice Awards, and the 10th Screen Actors Guild Awards. At the Venice International Film Festival, the film was nominated for the Golden Lion, while Penn won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor. It also received 5 nominations at the 57th British Academy Film Awards, including Best Actor (for both Penn and Del Toro) and Best Actress (Watts).
Plot
[edit]The story is told in a nonlinear manner. The following is a chronological summary of the plot:
Jack Jordan is an ex-convict who is using his new-found religious faith to recover from drug addiction and alcoholism. Paul Rivers is a mathematics professor with a dedicated wife, Mary, and has a fatal heart condition. Unless he receives a new heart from an organ donor, he will not live longer than a month. Mary wants him to donate his sperm so she can have his baby even if he dies. Cristina Peck is 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 behind her days of drugs and alcohol. These three separate stories/characters become tied together one evening when Jack kills Cristina's husband and children in a hit-and-run accident. Cristina's husband's heart is donated to Paul, who begins his recovery.
Cristina is devastated by the loss and returns to drugs and alcohol. Paul is eager to begin normal life again, but he hesitantly agrees to his wife's idea of artificial insemination as a last-ditch effort to get pregnant. During consultations with a doctor before the procedure, Paul learns about an abortion that Mary had undergone 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 private detective 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 and starts using drugs again. 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 clashes verbally with a pastor who had helped him after his last incarceration, claims that God had betrayed him, loses his will to live, and attempts suicide. He is released after Cristina declines to press charges against him, as she realizes that incarcerating Jack 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, working as a manual laborer.
Paul finds an opportunity to meet Cristina and eventually reveals how the two of them are connected. She is initially furious and forces him out, but soon reconsiders. Desperately needing each other, they continue their relationship. Though Paul has a new heart, his body is rejecting the transplant and his outlook is grim. As Cristina begins to dwell more on her changed life and the death of her family, she becomes obsessed with taking revenge against Jack. She goads Paul into agreeing to murder him.
Paul meets with the private detective who had found Cristina for him. The detective tells Paul that Jack is living in a motel and sells Paul a gun. Paul and Cristina check into the motel where Jack is staying. When Jack is walking alone, Paul grabs him and leads him out into a clearing at gunpoint intending to kill him. However, Paul is unable to kill Jack, who himself is confused, shaking and pleading during the event. Paul fires three shots into the ground and tells Jack to "just disappear," then returns to the motel and lies 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, orders Paul to actually kill him and end his misery. A struggle ensues, during which Cristina blind-sides Jack and starts beating him with a wooden lamp. Paul collapses, gets hold of the gun, and accidentally shoots himself.
Jack and Cristina rush Paul to the hospital. Still believing he deserves to be punished for his hit-and-run, Jack tells the police that he was the one who shot Paul, but is released when his story cannot be confirmed. Paul dies, and the conflict between Cristina and Jack remains unresolved (they meet in the waiting room after Paul's death; if they have a conversation, it is not shown). When Cristina offers to donate blood for Paul in the hospital, she learns that she is pregnant; the doctor urges Cristina to quit using drugs. After Paul's death, Cristina is seen tentatively preparing for the new child in one of her daughter's bedrooms, which she had previously been unable to enter after her daughter's death. Jack is shown returning to his family.
Cast
[edit]- Sean Penn as Paul Rivers
- Naomi Watts as Cristina Peck
- Benicio del Toro as Jack Jordan
- Charlotte Gainsbourg as Mary Rivers
- Melissa Leo as Marianne Jordan
- Danny Huston as Michael
- Pamela Blair as Doctor
- John Rubinstein as Gynecologist
- Clea DuVall as Claudia
- Eddie Marsan as Reverend John
Cinematic technique
[edit]21 Grams' cinematography is characterized by its gritty, hand-held shooting style, the use of the bleach bypass process, and distinct color casts, all of which serve to differentiate the intertwined narratives of the three main characters. Director of photography Rodrigo Prieto explained in American Cinematographer that these techniques were intended to provide visual cues for the film's non-linear storytelling, helping viewers place events chronologically.
Each character's story was marked by a specific color palette: Paul’s scenes were rendered in cool tones, Jack's in warm colors, and Cristina's in neutral hues. Different film stocks were also used to reflect the progression of each character's emotional journey. Finer grain was employed during moments of hope, while heavier grain appeared as the characters' situations grew more complex. Prieto emphasized that these stylistic choices emerged through experimentation rather than pre-determined design, with constant testing to achieve the desired visual effects.
Hand-held camerawork was consistently utilized, even for static shots, to create an immersive, reactive feel. As the characters' lives destabilize, the framing becomes more unbalanced, with "abandoning angles" that place the characters in wide shots, often at the edges of the frame, to emphasize their isolation. Prieto explained that this approach was meant to reflect the emotional instability and solitude the characters experience during their most difficult moments.[5]
Title
[edit]The title refers to an experiment in 1907 which attempted to show scientific proof of the existence of the soul by recording a loss of body weight (said to represent the departure of the soul) immediately following death. Referred to as the 21 grams experiment as one subject lost "three-fourths of an ounce" (21.3 grams), the experiment is regarded by the scientific community as flawed and unreliable, though it has been credited with popularizing the concept that the soul weighs 21 grams.[6]
The title 21 Grams refers to a 1907 experiment that attempted to provide scientific proof for the existence of the soul by measuring the loss of body weight immediately after death, which was believed to represent the departure of the soul. In this experiment, one subject was recorded to have lost "three-fourths of an ounce" (21.3 grams), leading to the claim that the soul weighs 21 grams. Although the experiment is widely regarded as flawed and unreliable by the scientific community, it has contributed to the popular belief that the soul has a measurable weight of 21 grams.[6]
Reception
[edit]Critical response
[edit]21 Grams received positive reviews from critics upon release, with praise directed at Iñárritu's direction, Arriaga's screenplay, and the performances of Watts and Del Toro.
The film holds an 81% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 182 reviews, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Iñárritu deftly weaves an uncommonly structured narrative with panache in 21 Grams, a stylish, haunting drama full of fine performances."[7] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."[8]
Critic Roger Ebert questioned the film's use of a non-linear narrative but praised the acting, stating: "It grips us, moves us, astonishes us."[9] Similarly, Elvis Mitchell commended the performances and called the film "an extraordinarily satisfying vision" that "may well be the crowning work of this year."[10]
Box office
[edit]21 Grams emerged as a moderate commercial success at the box-office, grossing $60.4 million worldwide against a production budget of $20 million.[2]
Accolades
[edit]See also
[edit]- Hyperlink cinema – the film style of using multiple inter-connected story lines.
- List of films about mathematicians
References
[edit]- ^ "21 GRAMS (15)". British Board of Film Classification. November 18, 2003. Retrieved November 16, 2014.
- ^ a b c "21 Grams (2003)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved December 17, 2010.
- ^ "21 GRAMS (2003)". BFI. Archived from the original on August 11, 2016. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
- ^ "nthposition.com". www.nthposition.com. Archived from the original on November 1, 2014. Retrieved July 26, 2017.
- ^ Calhoun, John (December 2003). "Heartbreak and Loss". American Cinematographer. 84.
- ^ a b "Weight of the Soul". Snopes.com. October 27, 2003. Retrieved February 23, 2015.
- ^ "21 Grams (2003)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved February 25, 2022.
- ^ "21 Grams". Metacritic.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (November 25, 2003). "21 Grams". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved December 17, 2010.
- ^ (October 18, 2003). "Movie Review 21 Grams (2003)". The New York Times. Retrieved August 20, 2013.
- ^ "The 76th Academy Awards". Oscars.org – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. October 4, 2014. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
- ^ "Bafta awards 2004: The winners". BBC News. February 15, 2004. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
- ^ "The BFCA Critics' Choice Awards 2003". Broadcast Film Critics Association. January 10, 2004. Archived from the original on July 30, 2011. Retrieved March 16, 2011.
- ^ "FFCC Award Winners". Florida Film Critics. Archived from the original on December 9, 2011. Retrieved June 4, 2011.
- ^ "Here are the Independent Spirit Award nominees". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
- ^ "Los Angeles Film Critics Awards 2003". FilmAffinity. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
- ^ "National Board of Review – 2003 Awards". www.nbrmp.org. Archived from the original on September 27, 2011. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
- ^ Rooney, David (January 4, 2004). "'Splendor' in awards mix". Variety. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
- ^ "The 2003 Online Film Critics Nominations". The World Journal. Archived from the original on August 21, 2004.
- ^ "Satellite Awards for 2004". IMDb. Retrieved May 18, 2017.
- ^ "The 10th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards". www.sagawards.org. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
- ^ "Official Awards of the 60th Mostra". labiennale.org. Archived from the original on August 4, 2004. Retrieved June 8, 2018.
- ^ "2003 WAFCA Awards". www.wafca.com. Archived from the original on November 5, 2011. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
- ^ "World Soundtrack Awards (2003)". IMDb. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
External links
[edit]
- Official website – archived from the original on March 31, 2019
- 21 Grams at IMDb
- 21 Grams at AllMovie
- 21 Grams at Metacritic
- 21 Grams at Rotten Tomatoes
- Cinematography of 21 Grams from American Cinematographer
- The science behind 21 Grams at ABC Online
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
- 2003 films
- 2003 crime drama films
- 2003 crime thriller films
- American crime drama films
- American crime thriller films
- 2000s English-language films
- Films directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu
- Films with screenplays by Guillermo Arriaga
- American anthology films
- Films about grief
- Films about mathematics
- Films about suicide
- Films shot in New Mexico
- Films shot in Tennessee
- American nonlinear narrative films
- 2003 independent films
- Focus Features films
- Icon Productions films
- Films scored by Gustavo Santaolalla
- Hyperlink films
- 2000s American films
- English-language crime drama films
- English-language independent films
- English-language crime thriller films