Brothers

Movie Grade: B

In director Jim Sheridan's latest film (an adaptation of the Dutch film sharing the same name), we find an interesting assortment of modern-day characters. The wayward brother fresh out of jail, an emotionally distant father married to an emotionally available
stepmother, and the older brother who has kept it all together while running his own life which consists of his wife and children and a military career.

Sheridan, along with writer David Benioff, craft a world that could be
Anywhere USA, and then rocket us into one family's intense struggle with love, loss, redemption and trust that elevate the characters beyond just generic archetypes.

What's fascinating about this film is the gradual shift in the lives of the characters in it. Jake Gyllenhaal's Tommy starts as a loose, unreliable canon while Tobey Maguire's Sam provides a grounded center and then as the plot unfolds, the two shift and switch places.

Natalie Portman's character is the fulcrum around which the entire shift swings. Portman presents an evenhanded woman faced with hard decisions but with the will to keep moving forward for her two young daughters. Her affect on the two brothers and their relationship is essential to the plot and is the main focus of the film.

Maguire does a fantastic job showing a man frayed almost past his breaking point, even if he does occasionally get close to overacting in some of his scenes. The downward spiral of his character as he struggles with guilt and fear is interesting to watch as it unfolds.

Gyllenhaal gives us a character who starts as a general slacker and dead weight to those around him, but then manages to clean up his act in an effort to be there for the ones who need him and become the adult he never realized he could be with traces of the young man he once was still flickering through.

Two of the three scene stealers of the film are undoubtedly the two young girls caught in the middle of the turmoil played by Bailee Madison and Taylor Geare. Madison in particular gives a heart-breakingly real performance as a daughter who is watching her home fall about and is just old enough to start understanding what is
going on, but not how to change it. A charged dinner scene displays not only her incredible talent at such a young age, but also that she is an actor to watch in any future films. The third scene-stealer, although he more inhabits the scenes than steals them, is Sam Shepard as the emotionally detached father. What could have been a cliché
performance in other less talented hands becomes a living person with Shepard's ample talent. Shepard manages to make the relationship between Maguire and Gyllenhal all the more believable, even when he isn't in their scenes, as his interaction with the two gives weight to

why they are both who they are at the start of the film as well as who they are by the end and their relationship throughout.

Grippingly emotional and intensely real, Brothers manages to move
beyond being just a drama and becomes a fascinating character study that audiences will be hard pressed not enjoy.

Movie Grade: B

Synopsis:

A young man comforts his older brother’s wife and children after he goes missing in Afghanistan. Based on Susanne Bier’s film, “Brothers”.