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October 18, 2007
In the Valley of Elah (2007)
Hearing praise of Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron, and knowing that this movie was scripted and directed by Paul Haggis, I made sure to seek out In the Valley of Elah ("elah, elah. eh eh eh!" - okay, that joke is for Ric, who sings the song every time I mention this movie). The story is about Hank Deerfield, a former military man who receives a call that his son came back from Iraq a few days earlier and has since gone AWOL. Hank sets out to find his son, soon discovering that his son has been brutally killed. Aided by an under-appreciated police detective, he conducts an investigation of his own to find out the circumstances of his son's death. Just in case you're wondering, the valley of Elah is where David defeated Goliath, and that story is referenced in the movie.
The talk about Tommy Lee Jones is well justified, and is the main feature of the movie, since the movie is mostly about Hank's response to his son's death and how he copes with it by relentlessly searching for answers. After seeing The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada last year and this movie this year, he is definitely starting to be an actor I look forward to watching. Theron, as always, performs well, partly due to the fact that Haggis wrote her character to be more than just a cliche in a detective-type plot.
I enjoyed a lot of the details that Haggis wrote in the script. It's a "who done it" situation, but it's more than that, and small details such as the condition of Hank's bed at the beginning and end of the movie are what make it better than your average movie.
Thankfully for me, the movie remains apolitical for the majority of its runtime. I was afraid that Hank's son was part of some sort of political scandal and an Army coverup, but it was nothing so extreme. Sadly, Haggis resorts to making a political statement in the very last shot of the movie, which almost ruined it for me. Strange, how one little shot can make such a difference, but his movie began as something that explored different ideas about loss, coping, the effects of military experiences on men, and the differences between different generations of soldier... and it ended with a blatant exclamation that irritated me so much that I now almost think back on the movie with disdain.
I suppose that, in the end, the rest of the script transcends Haggis' flawed ending, and if I simply change one little detail in my memory, it's one of the better movies I saw this year.
Posted by Jeri 
at 04:16:00 pm | movies, 2007
10 comments
That's what the last shot of Pride & Prejudice did for me! Fortunately I saw it without the last scene in the UK and I bought the Region 2 DVD just to be without it!Thanks for the word on the rest of Elah though, I'll try to catch it.
(Is that the Umbrella song Ric sings?)
Yes, the umbrella song. "You can stand under my umbrella (elah elah).." That's funny. Do they pronounce it "ella" in the movie? When I first saw the title I thought it was Eee-law for some reason. I just saw this reaction to David Edelstein's review which I thought was interesting. My bad, I was sure I embedded it. Maybe links are blocked for anti-spam reasons. Here it is otherwise:http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/haggisprop.php
Well, I know I'm susceptible to the Haggis touch, since I actually liked Crash a lot. But I thought this film was a bit more subtle than that, and didn't find it clunky or third-rate.I do admit that, getting some distance from the movie, when I think about it, I still feel upset and focus more on how the ending ruined it rather than on its better qualities. Edelstein says that the point is driven to home in every-other scene. I actually thought the point is set up at every other scene, but not fully made until the movie's end. If that final scene had shown an opposite action (sorry, can't be specific), the movie still would have pondered some interesting and important issues, but still been a tribute to soldiers, rather than a loud comment on the war itself.
As for the reaction to his review, it's an interesting idea to ponder, whether a poorly made movie(maker) can be forgiven if its heart is in the right place.
I'm not sure what I think about the movie or Haggis' heart, because each viewer can make his own interpretation of the movie's message, and thus makes his own interpretation of the condition of the heart. I thought the ending was lame because it seems to indicate that Iraq is the problem and that the modern soldier experiences more depravity than those of the past (and that's just my reading of it). After recently watching a lot of stuff revolving around wars (especially interviews in Ken Burns' The War), I could see that any war can scar anyone who is involved in it. War is a problem, but the depravity of men is the greater one, which leads to wars. And Haggis' emphasis seems to indicate that there's some sort of recent state of emergency within the souls of soldiers, while I believe that the issues he deals with are not new ones. He seems to think that the Iraq war is the problem, instead of looking at a bigger moral picture. I don't necessarily expect him to look at the bigger picture, but do think that's where the movie fails for me.
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thanks , its really good movie and about who is the siger i dont know ? i am from iraq and wish " the war " never come agine to any one in this univers
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