21 Grams (2003)
Average Rating: 7.5/10
Reviews Counted: 177
Fresh: 142 | Rotten: 35
A moving, but frustratingly-structured drama with superb performances.
Average Rating: 8.1/10
Critic Reviews: 38
Fresh: 34 | Rotten: 4
A moving, but frustratingly-structured drama with superb performances.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 186,068
Movie Info
Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu makes his first English-language feature with the downbeat drama 21 Grams. Set in an unnamed U.S. urban center, the film uses a nonlinear structure to piece together the intertwined lives of three very different people. Paul (Sean Penn) is a math teacher with a heart problem and a troubled marriage to British wife Mary (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Christine (Naomi Watts) is a former drug addict who lives with her husband, Michael (Danny Huston), and her
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Cast
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Sean Penn
Paul -
Benicio Del Toro
Jack -
Naomi Watts
Christine -
Charlotte Gainsbourg
Mary -
Melissa Leo
Marianne -
Clea DuVall
Claudia -
Danny Huston
Michael -
Paul Calderon
Brown -
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Teresa Delgado
Gina -
Marc Musso
Freddy -
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All Critics (188) | Top Critics (40) | Fresh (142) | Rotten (35) | DVD (23)
Dripping with cinematic style.
Top CriticChallenges and provokes in unexpected ways.
[An]uncommonly ambitious, superbly acted, frustratingly flawed drama.
Establishes [Inarritu] as a major cinematic force.
You won't soon forget the world that Gonzalez Inarritu creates.
Fascinating because of the way the story is told -- and because of the existential issues that it forces you to consider.
Thought-provoking film not for tweens/young teens.
A highly emotional, thought provoking drama that easily lives up to the hype, 21 Grams is a film that has all of its bases covered: script, acting and direction.
"21 Grams" commands a running discourse that runs as a constant thematic thread through all of humanity. The movie delivers life as a floating mysterious entity that we all share. It's very few films that achieve anything remotely close.
Une oeuvre d'une rare intensité dramatique qui n'a aucunement besoin de suivre un cheminement narratif classique pour susciter une vive réaction chez le spectateur
The structure simply doesn't let any of the characters build an arc of growth or despair.
The story never grabbed me, and the jumps in narrative time seemed arbitrary, soon becoming a distressing obstacle rather than a narrative lynchpin. Not as good as it wants to be.
The performances, by and large, outweigh the film's unnecessary metaphorical gunk.
Quel est le poids de l'amour, de la vengeance et de la culpabilité? À vous de le découvrir.
... a hurricane of melodrama and implausibly accelerating crises that seem orchestrated merely to turn up the intensity. ... At 125 minutes, [it] feels more like 240.
21 Grams thrashes wildly...exhorting us to feel something. Apart from the fleeting satisfaction of its structural parlor game, I felt little...save exhausted boredom.
Absorbs you and dissects its tale of life, death, and re-birth with inventive force.
21 Grams achieves its objectives and, despite its flaws, is thoroughly entertaining.
21 Grams...is intelligent, well-written, and told with a unique style, and it features some of the best acting presently available.
A bleak, rather obvious melodrama disguised by a tricksy, time-splicing structure.
its boldly atomised narrative, its labyrinthine circularity and its no-nonsense performances make 21 Grams... well worth the weight.
[O]ne of those rare pure examples of the highest form of collaborative art ... It is as sweet and hurtful as life itself.
Could stand to lose at least 21 minutes-the film implodes under the somber weight of its own pretentiousness
Uno sabe que está ante un gran director cuando para conmovernos no hace falta más que un excelente grupo de actores, una cámara y una buena historia.
A non-linear, emotionally escalating collage of three lives on a tragic collision course, the film is blessed with innovative storytelling and raw, stellar performances.
The movie becomes a mosaic of moments... the cinematic equal of Rubik's Cube
Audience Reviews for 21 Grams
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Paul: [quoting a Poem] The earth turned to bring us closer. It turned on itself and in us, until it finally brought us together in this dream.
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- Paul: How many lives do we live? How many times do we die? They say we all lose 21 grams... at the exact moment of our death. Everyone. And how much fits into 21 grams? How much is lost? When do we lose 21 grams? How much goes with them? How much is gained? How much is gained? Twenty-one grams. The weight of a stack of five nickels. The weight of a hummingbird. A chocolate bar. How much did 21 grams weigh?
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- Christine: You know what I thought when mom died? I couldn't understand how you could talk to people again, how you could laugh... again. I couldn't understand how you could play with us. And no, no that's a lie, life does not just go on.
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- Paul: Did you know that eating alone could cause kidney damage? And that's BAD.
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Movie: ID: 13178 Title: 21 Grams Release Date: 2003-11-21 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 4 Status: 1
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Foreign Titles
- 21 Gramm (DE)
- 21 grammes (FR)
This is a look at the lives of three broken people: a feverishly born again ex-con, a critically ill college professor, and a housewife with a tainted past. Their lives intersect following a bad car accident, and the films looks at their lives before, during, and after the crash, examining the consequences of things, and the interplay that goes on between them.
This is some intereting stuff, and I didn't mind that it was downbeat and depressing as all hell; I just didn't care for the jarring editing or feel that this needed to be told out of chronological order. It really seemed to have no other purpose than to tell a story in a unique way or to be interesting. That doesn't work when this sort of thing is old hat and the way it is done doesn't make things more interesting. It really just makes things seem jumbled and fractured, and not in a good way.
At least the story arcs are rather engaging, and the film has decent characters played by wonderful actors who give some compelling and great performances. My favorite was definitely Del Toro, though Watts gives a bold and courageous performance, while Penn seemed more low key though still commanding and powerful. I could have used a bit more Leo and definitely some more DuVall, but at least we got to see them at all.
The film brings up some interesting concepts and has a lot of nice things to offer, but I think it would have fared far better had they just played it straight. Doing something like this seemingly just for the sake of it takes away all of the powerful that the thing had in the first place, kinda like using Dutch angles without really understanding why they're effective when used properly.
So yeah, this film is decent, and has its moments, but it's a mess and doesn't hold up as being as strong as it should have been, so I'm on the fence, but mostly leaning towards a thumbs up.