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Movies / On DVD / 21 Grams
21 Grams

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21 Grams (2003)

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Reviews Counted:171

Fresh:140

Rotten:31

Average Rating:7.6/10

Consensus: A moving, but frustratingly-structured drama with superb performances.

Rated: R [See Full Rating] for language, sexuality, some violence and drug use

Runtime: 2 hrs 5 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:Nov 21, 2003 Limited

Box Office: $16,162,920

Synopsis: 21 Grams is the new film from the Academy Award-nominated director of Amores Perros, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. It is a story of hope and humanity, of resilience and survival. Whether you fear... 21 Grams is the new film from the Academy Award-nominated director of Amores Perros, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. It is a story of hope and humanity, of resilience and survival. Whether you fear death or not, it comes, and at that moment your body becomes twenty-one grams lighter. Is it a person's soul that constitutes those twenty-one grams? Is that weight carried by those who survive us? The lead actors in 21 Grams are three-time Academy Award nominee Sean Penn, Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro, and award-winning actress Naomi Watts. The actors were all honored at the film's world premiere at the 2003 Venice International Film Festival, where Sean Penn won Best Actor and Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts earned the Audience Awards for Best Actor and Actress. 21 Grams, written by Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros), explores the emotionally and physically charged existences of three people over a period of several months. An accident unexpectedly throws their lives and destinies together, in a story that will take them to the heights of love, the depths of revenge, and the promise of redemption. College professor Paul Rivers (Sean Penn) and his wife Mary (Charlotte Gainsbourg) find their union precariously balanced between life and death. He is mortally ill and awaiting a heart transplant, while she hopes to become pregnant with his child through artificial insemination. Cristina Peck (Naomi Watts), having matured since her reckless past, is a beloved older sister to Claudia (Clea DuVall), a good wife to Michael (Danny Huston) and loving mother to two little girls. Her family radiates hope and joy. Much farther down the socioeconomic scale, ex-con Jack Jordan (Benicio Del Toro) and his wife Marianne (Melissa Leo) struggle to provide for their two children while Jack reaffirms his commitment to religion. A tragic accident that claims several lives places these couples in each other's orbit. In the aftermath, Paul confronts his own mortality, Cristina takes action to come to terms with her present and perhaps her future, and Jack's faith is put to the test. If spiritual equilibrium is to be regained by any one of them, it could come at great cost to the others. Yet the will to live, and the instinct to reach out to another person for support, remains ever-present among them all. -- © Focus Features [More]

Starring: Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Naomi Watts, Charlotte Gainsbourg

Starring: Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Naomi Watts, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Melissa Chessington Leo, Clea DuVall, Danny Huston

Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Screenwriter: Guillermo Arriaga Jordan
Producer: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Ted Hope, Robert Solerno
Composer: Gustavo Santaolaya
Studio: Focus Features

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Release:

Mar 16, 2004

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Reviews for 21 Grams

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81 - 100 (sorted by date)
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For a film with such a powerful story with such fantastic performances, 21 Grams falters under excessive editing and a mistrust of its material.

Full Review Source: Film Snobs | comment Comment
12/24/03
Jimmy O
Jimmy O
Film Snobs

"21 Grams" challenges and entertains simultaneously.

Full Review Source: Quad City Times (Davenport, IA) | comment Comment
12/24/03
Linda Cook
Linda Cook
Quad City Times (Davenport, IA)

An absorbing drama that's as much about loneliness, retribution and redemption as it is about matters of the (literal) heart.

Full Review Source: Creative Loafing | comment Comment
12/23/03
Matt Brunson
Matt Brunson
Creative Loafing

The subject matter in 21 Grams is too emotionally raw, the filmmaking too hypnotic and the performances just too damned powerful.

Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment Comment
12/23/03
Rick Kisonak
Rick Kisonak
Film Threat

Even when the film doesn't quite jell it's impossible to escape the sense that we're in the presence of a developing filmmaker who's taking us places we've never been.

Full Review Source: Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC) | comment Comment
12/23/03
Ken Hanke
Ken Hanke
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

This is not a film for a passive movie watcher - extremely rewarding and riveting, worth the challenge of the first third.

Full Review Source: Cinerina | comment Comment
12/21/03
Karina Montgomery
Karina Montgomery
Cinerina

Editor Stephen Mirrione tries his best to keep the stories together but with Iñárritu's confusing directorial technique.

Full Review Source: Oscar Guy | comment Comment
12/21/03
Wesley Lovell
Wesley Lovell
Oscar Guy

The film tries to sound ponderous in matters of death and fate, but achieves only the level of art-house pretension.

Full Review Source: EricDSnider.com | comment Comment
12/20/03
Eric D. Snider
Eric D. Snider
EricDSnider.com

Would likely be a chore to sit through were it not for the novelty of the storytelling technique. There's some top-notch acting here ... which is rewarding in and of itself.

Full Review Source: Window to the Movies | comment Comment
12/19/03
Jeffrey Chen
Jeffrey Chen
Window to the Movies

In its intended but self defeating form, 21 grams amounts to two hours of miserable tedium.

Full Review Source: Film Experience | comment Comment
12/18/03
Nathaniel Rogers
Nathaniel Rogers
Film Experience

Não é um filme fácil de se assistir (tanto no aspecto emocional quanto intelectual), mas isso não quer dizer que não seja magnífico ao seu próprio – e melancólico – modo.

Full Review Source: Cinema em Cena | comment Comment
12/15/03
Pablo Villaca
Pablo Villaca
Cinema em Cena

As 21 Grams has it, the most difficult aspect of "going on" is the lie that must propel it.

Full Review Source: PopMatters | comment Comment
12/15/03
Cynthia Fuchs
Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters

The movie crushes its characters under its foot, then steps back and wants you to look at the mess and admire it.

Full Review Source: KFOR Channel 4 News | comment Comment
12/15/03
Blake Davis
Blake Davis
KFOR Channel 4 News

This is an actors' film, and the fragmentation takes away from the power of the performances.

Full Review Source: Goatdog's Movies | comment Comment
12/14/03
Michael W. Phillips, Jr.
Michael W. Phillips, Jr.
Goatdog's Movies

Inarritu plots the story in a non-linear style that mirrors randomness. He does it so exceptionally well, we almost forget about the film’s deficiencies.

Full Review Source: Star Newspapers (Chicago, IL) | comment Comment
12/13/03
Michael Drakulich
Michael Drakulich
Star Newspapers (Chicago, IL)

Superb ensemble cast.

Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
12/12/03
Dennis Schwartz
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Devolves into pretentious, po-faced soap opera.

Full Review Source: Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus | comment Comment
12/08/03
Bryant Frazer
Bryant Frazer
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus

[A]n imaginative, heartbreaking film -- one of 2003's best -- that you won't easily forget.

Full Review Source: DustinPutman.com | comment Comment
12/06/03
Dustin Putman
Dustin Putman
DustinPutman.com

The shuffled order of the telling is a gimmick, but it is one that works reasonably well and perhaps even works to rivet the viewer's attention.

Full Review Source: rec.arts.movies.reviews | comment Comment
12/03/03
Mark R. Leeper
Mark R. Leeper
rec.arts.movies.reviews
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Boston Phoenix | comment Comment
12/02/03
Boston Phoenix
 
 
81 - 100 (sorted by date)
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Latest News for 21 Grams

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October 04, 2006: "21 Grams," "Babel" Creators Innaritu and Arriaga on the Outs?
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