The Messenger

With The Hurt Locker, we were offered a visceral window into the experience of the current war in the Middle East. The addition of The Messenger makes this an indispensable neorealistic pairing of films depicting the toils of war both on the sands abroad and at home, on our own front porches. Whereas The Hurt Locker takes place mostly in the barracks and in the trenches, as it were, The Messenger‘s trenches are back yards and clothes lines, living rooms flooded with tears and memories of fallen sons, husbands, fathers, mothers, daughters, leaving the rest behind to grieve, to mourn, to figure out life again, on their own.

The plot-lines here serve almost solely to develop the characters. Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) a young Staff Seargent and decorated war hero, teams up against his will with Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) on a new, important mission, though entirely domestic in its location. The pair must deliver a message of death to the nearest of kin (“NOK”) within twenty-four hours of passing. The plot qua plot essentially stops here, where we discover slowly that this film is about people grappling with circumstances they don’t understand.

Will and Tony couldn’t be much different from one another, yet they share both a position and a mission that bonds them whether they like it or not. Will, who is “not a religious man,” is given strict procedural orders about how to conduct the messages. However, being more compassionate, more fully human even, than we could have predicted, he finds himself unable to stick to the game plan in more ways than one.

Oren Moverman shows brilliant direction and cinematographic control. It seems his mantra during the entirety of the shoot was simply, “Don’t cut.” And he sticks to it religiously. Cuts occur only rarely and when absolutely necessary, focusing the eye on the actors and the characters, the struggles that each faces on his or her own, in a seemingly unreasonable world, full of death, loss, and confusion. It works. Ben Foster delivers a performance we will look back on later in his career, as a kind of litmus test for his future performances. And Harrelson is beyond a doubt at the top of his game, as a recovering alcoholic, lascivious and belligerent, yet assiduous and focused in the task at hand. Samantha Morton (Synecdoche, New York) and Jena Malone round out the cast with two heart-breaking performances.

The writing is flawless, the acting a veritable masterclass in honesty, and the direction tailor-made for this film, this story, these characters. One can only hope that Moverman produces more work like this in the near future, as this is undoubtedly one of the most direct and simultaneously accessible films of the year. The film seems to promise an ongoing existential crisis as well as an ethical conflict, and it delivers on all accounts. Put this one on your short list. In fact, go ahead and put it near the top.

Rating: 4/4 Stars