21 Grams

21 Grams is a 2003 film written by Guillermo Arriaga and directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. It stars Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio Del Toro, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Melissa Leo and Clea DuVall.

Related Topics:
2003 - Film - Guillermo Arriaga - Alejandro González Iñárritu - Sean Penn - Naomi Watts - Benicio Del Toro - Charlotte Gainsbourg - Melissa Leo - Clea DuVall

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Like Arriaga and González Iñárritu's previous movie, Amores perros, 21 Grams is a movie which interweaves several plotlines, this time around the consequences of a tragic automobile accident. Penn plays a critically ill academic mathematician, Watts plays a grief stricken mother, and Del Toro plays an ex-convict whose newly discovered Christianity is sorely tested in the aftermath of the accident.

Related Topics:
Amores perros - Christianity

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The movie was shot in chronological order, but is edited in a non-linear arrangement where the lives of the characters are depicted before and after the accident. The three main characters each have 'past' 'present' and 'future' story threads, which are shown as non-linear fragments which punctuate elements of the overall story, all imminently coming toward each other and coalescing as the story progresses. Iñárritu may have been influenced by the silent film Intolerance (film), though his approach is more complex. While sophisticated viewers can assemble the story and appreciate the director's motives, many others found the sequencing obstructive and confusing. Positive and negative opinion of the style appears to be highly polarized.

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The movie was nominated in the 2003 Academy Awards for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Benicio Del Toro) and Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Naomi Watts).

Related Topics:
2003 - Academy Awards - Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role - Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

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Tagline: How much does life weigh?

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The title of the movie comes from the work of Dr. Duncan MacDougall, who in the early 1900s sought to measure the weight purportedly lost by a human body when the soul departed the body upon death. MacDougall weighed dying patients in an attempt to prove that the soul was material and measurable. These experiments are widely considered to have had little if any scientific merit, and although MacDougall's results varied considerably from 21 grams, for some people this figure has become synonymous with the measure of a soul's weight. http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp.

Related Topics:
Duncan MacDougall - 1900 - Soul - Death - Scientific

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