#im having fun with these tags ngl

21 Grams (2003)

Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Doomsy’s Rating: 21/100

21 Grams is one of the most irritating, self-important films I’ve seen in a long time, and the depressing fact remains, its near-universal laudatory plaudits are baffling to me. What on earth were the critics smoking giving this abysmal trainwreck such high marks? Jesus Christ, watching this I was suddenly reminded what a masterpiece Pulp Fiction was that so many films (including this one) started copping the nonlinear narrative bullshit just for the sake of obfuscating very simple stories under the guise of being “cool”. 

Where do we begin here? Well, we start with gruff, miserable-looking Sean Penn as some kind of pathetic failed academic whose stupidly earnest attempts at explaining the universe in numbers are haphazardly thrown into this toilet-paper script. He needs a heart transplant and his self-righteous, borderline wife Mary (Charlotte Gainsbourg, warming up for similar roles in Lars von Trier’s AntichristandMelancholia)wants his sperm so she can raise his kid after he’s dead. Great noble sacrifices, Typhoid Mary? Any of this ringing the bells of cinematic misogyny? Of course, but hold Andrea Dworkin’s beer, because the real sexism of the piece comes from Naomi Watts’ histrionic banshee role as a grieving wife whose sole purpose in the film is to be unhinged and shout at Penn’s character. In fact, every single woman depicted herein shouts at men and manipulates them, then abandons them. Wow. Such a revolutionary concept! 

Riding into this inane, trite affair with an admittedly-beautiful hairline is Benicio Del Toro as a born-again Christian (oh god, here we go…) with a tortured past and a penchant for child abuse (condoned by the story, no less). His arc, so laughably contrived and misguided, seems to be “oh, religion bad, now go die because you suck”. Adding into this blockbuster film is the atrocious visual style, with the colors saturated to such an extreme level that I thought my television was malfunctioning. Turns out it’s not, and I was really being subjected to such a noisy, shouty experience under the pretense of “art”. Inarritu can frankly eat my fuck with such a boring piece of shit. “What is the weight of life,” Penn’s character snoringly muses in voiceover near the end of the film. Yawn. This director should strongly consider the weight of his own talent (or lack thereof) because Terrence Malick he’s fucking not.