BEFORE: This is something of a last-minute drop in, I got it only a few weeks ago to pair with "Pawn Sacrifice" on a DVD, allowing me to clear that film off of the DVR. I almost put "Chuck" with that film, since they both have Liev Schreiber in them, but I ended up putting that film with another one, so I needed to find something else with Tobey Maguire in it. This fit the bill, plus I had an easy way to work it in, since I knew I had some Jake Gyllenhaal films coming up on the docket.
THE PLOT: A young man comforts his older brother's wife and children after he goes missing in Afghanistan.
AFTER: This is a lot more complex than your average Hollywood love triangle film, because there's the extra element of war, and being told that a soldier is dead when in fact he's just missing, and then of course there's the family angle, where his wife starts to have feelings for her husband's younger brother. For added drama, the younger brother is fresh out of prison, and trying to act like an adult for perhaps the first time in his life. They find each other through this shared grief, and then before things can go very far, the older brother is released from captivity in the Middle East and his family is informed that he's still alive. (Awkward! What do you do in this case then, hold an un-funeral?)
But the audience still wants to know about the relationship between the wife and the brother - did they or didn't they? I think this was kept pretty vague for a reason, so that when the older brother came back we would be just as uncertain about it as he was. He kept saying that he wanted to know the truth, but did he really? And if they did sleep together, he said he'd be OK with it, but would he really? Something tells me he was only being polite, meanwhile contrary forces were raging inside of him.
The whole family here is transformed by the experience of war, while one brother has trouble re-adjusting to civilian life, the other has just finished re-inventing himself as a different kind of person, someone who can interact better with kids and also a romantic partner. Their father also transforms himself (slightly) into a more understanding, forgiving person - I wish they could have given their mother some character growth as well, but really, there wasn't any place to go with her.
What I don't recommend is doing what I did tonight, which was to go out to the movies to see "Isle of Dogs" (I'll post that review in a few weeks...) and then watching this one. Because I had some very weird dreams last night, like one where my wife and I were living in a room in a strange house, and there was a disturbed veteran living there and we were both very scared of him, and trying to steer clear of him. When we couldn't find our cat, Data, we were very concerned, and then he showed up outside our room and he was bleeding very badly, presumably because he'd been injured by the veteran with PTSD. That was very unpleasant.
Also starring Tobey Maguire (last seen in "Pawn Sacrifice"), Natalie Portman (last seen in "Jane Got a Gun"), Sam Shepard (last seen in "Out of the Furnace"), Mare Winningham (last seen in "Philomena"), Bailee Madison (last seen in "Parental Guidance"), Taylor Geare, Patrick John Flueger, Carey Mulligan (last seen in "Drive"), Clifton Collins Jr., (last seen in "Triple 9") Jenny Wade (last seen in "No Reservations"), Omid Abtahi, Navid Negahban, Enayat Delawary, Ethan Suplee (last seen in "Deepwater Horizon"), Arron Shiver, Ray Prewitt.
RATING: 5 out of 10 "dad jokes"
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