Director Robert Altman once told me if it weren’t for time, everything would happen at once. Fortunately for us, we do have time and, consequently, a real semblance of order. For whatever reason, the last five years have featured an inordinate amount of filmmakers doing their damnedest to get away from the constraints of time and chronology. This movement seems to have crested in director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film 21 Grams.

Naomi Watts stars in 21 Grams as Cristina Peck, a suburban soccer mom whose life is torn apart when an ex-con, Jack Jordan (Benecio Del Toro), inadvertently kills her husband and two young daughters in a hit-and-run accident. In an ever-so-ironic twist, her tragedy gives furthered life to David Rivers (Sean Penn), a man at death’s door who, after the accident, finally has the opportunity to get the heart transplant necessary to save his life. After his recovery, Rivers tracks down Peck and the two begin to form a relationship.

Iñárritu’s desire to play with the idea of time and to make audience members question the concept of "now" is a noble one, but it is implemented so poorly in 21 Grams that there were a number of times that I was unable to follow or understand what was happening on-screen.

Edited together almost as though Iñárritu took the script, shuffled the pages and then let the scenes remain where they lay, 21 Grams is a horrible compilation of flash backs to before the accident, flash forwards to after the accident and present day scenes. Adding to this sense of convolution is the fact that the characters often revert to old habits after the accident. With no title cards offering any kind of clue when differing events were taking place, it was hard to know whether the scenes of Peck snorting coke or of a healthy Rivers were happening before or after the accident.

By putting the scenes together in such a seemingly random fashion, Iñárritu is essentially allowing the viewers to construct their own narrative, putting the pieces of the puzzle (story) together as they go along. However, minus any blueprint or image of what the completed version of the film is supposed to look like this becomes a Herculian task.

Watts, Penn and Del Toro give good performances in their roles. I just wondered how much stronger they would have been had the plot unfolded in a manner that allowed the actors’ emotions and fears to build and develop.

21 Grams is an interesting experiment in time and perspective that was irritatingly hard to follow.

jackson casey

yes, it's true: Gram Parsons is often thought of as the first country rock star.