How do you rate a movie that is very good for the type of movie it is, yet is nevertheless one you just can’t bring yourself to like? Is it fair to dislike a film simply because you don’t like the genre or the content?
The Messenger is a movie about two Army servicemen who have the unenviable job of notifying – in person – the families of soldiers killed in war. Sgt. Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) is a decorated war hero fresh from Iraq. Back home, and with mere months left in his enlistment, he is assigned to partner with Capt. Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson, in a deservedly Oscar-nominated role) to knock on doors and tell mothers and fathers and widows that their beloved son or daughter or spouse, has been killed in action. “The Secretary of Defense would like to extend his deepest sympathy…” the spiel begins. The trick, according to the more experienced Stone, is to stick to the script. Never physically touch the NOK (next of kin), stay with the facts, inform them that a representative will be in touch for funeral arrangements, say you’re sorry for their loss, and get out. Montgomery understandably has a hard time with this rather robotic approach, and ends up trying to handle the task in a more personal way, not necessarily because he thinks it will help the NOK, but because he simply cannot do it otherwise. His more emotional investment ends up drawing him close to a widow (Samantha Morton, who I am told is not the same girl from Napoleon Dynamite), despite Stone’s warnings and objections.
The difference in philosophies between the two men is interesting, but the bulk of the movie, at least the first two-thirds, seems simply to be a series of killed-in-action notifications, going from one tragic door to the next. It is not unlike watching a series of car accidents. You want to look away, but you cannot. These scenes are effective. But is this kind of voyeurism good cinema? Do we want to be in the living rooms of parents who are receiving the worst news imaginable? The film, directed by Oren Moverman, is grim. As far as grim movies go, it is excellent. For that, I suppose I can appreciate and respect it. Did I like it? Ah. That, I am thinking, is another question entirely.
6/10