Spoilers: Okay anybody figure out if there is any order to the sequence? The only thing i've come up with is this: We are introduced to the characters. We then see their eventualities, i.e. they end up where they started. Watts, as a coke fiend, del Toro, as a sort of shady scumbag type guy, and Penn ended up dead as he was going to be without the heart. Then we see them in their seperate story lines leading up to the accident. Then the fallout of the accident. Does that seem right or make any sense?
I thought you really liked this movie? I saw it for the first time two nights ago. My buddy described it as "Requiem for a Dream is a complete feel good movie compared to 21 grams." I have to wholeheartedly disagree with him on this. I thought 21 grams showed quite a bit of redemption in the end for the three characters. An unfortunate turn of events had adversely affected all of their lives, and in the end they all made choices that they thought would help them "move on"--even if "moving on" meant death for some involved. Things didn't turn out they way each of them planned (granted, Del Toro's plans were more "spur of the moment"), yet I still feel they found a way to "move on" within the bungled turn of events. Did Penn's character die as he was left? The movie doesn't really answer that question, but even so.......I left with the feeling that even if he did die, he died somewhat more at peace with himself and with his actions. As for the order of events, I didn't really struggle with that too much. At first, I had to guess a bit, and it was made a bit more difficult by the fact that Penn's character (within the timeframe of actual events) goes through a period of looking like crap, then looking healthy, then looking like crap again. Still, by the time Watts' character was on the way to the hospital, I had the movie figured out. Not in a bad way, mind you......I still greatly enjoyed the rest of it. It's just that I wasn't in for any real surpises. I was easily able to assemble the chain of events in their actual order as I watched the remainder of the movie. I thought this was an excellent movie. Unfortunatley.....or fortunately (depending on how you look at it)....Pulp Fiction introduced most of America to this technique of jumbling around scenes in a movie according to a timeline. Perhaps there were others before it, but this is the movie that sticks out. The effect was incredible, but it seems that any movie beyond this that attempts it is just being "gimicky"--21 grams included. Fortunately, 21 grams was good enough to pull it off and transcend the gimicky nature of the way it was filmed. IMHO of course.
I do love this movie. My favorite, and IMO best movie of 2003. And really, no other movie even came close. RE: Your points on moving on. That's an interesting way of thinking about it. I kind of like it. What I originally thought was that each character reverted to it's original state before trying to change their lives. IE: Penn dies, Watts is a druggie, and Toro is a non-religious shady man. But the moving on thing is good, and a more positive way of looking at it. I loved the mixed timeline because I saw the ending, so the suspense was not WHAT would happen but HOW it would happen. That was amazingly awesome to me, I just loved it. I didn't find it gimmicky at all.
I actually thought the ending for all the characters was pretty depressing. It seemed like nothing positive happened with the characters other and them getting completely screwed over. Especially Watts's character being pregnant, a drug addict and completely alone. I’m with you on the mixed up timeline. It was great how it the story being told progressed while the time jumped around. I know its been done before but this was well executed. I felt it was well made/directed and extremely well acted but not at all entertaining (this doen't make it a bad film at all) As for the best film of 03 I would have to go with City of God with 21 Grams probally the best domestic film(need to see Mystic river).
Had I still been reviewing movies last year, this would've topped my list. I completely agree with Pole. I feel that the characters all had redemption in the end as well. An amazing movie...with a Dave Matthews song in the credits to boot!
