moviebuff801
12-19-2008, 11:34 PM
Seven Pounds
**** out of ****
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vjFRnkMd1M
“Seven Pounds” is a film of patience. One that isn’t concerned with making the motives of its main character Ben Thomas (Will Smith) clear right away. This gives it a more ambiguous feel, which is most welcome considering how formulaic the majority of today’s Hollywood films are coming. Everything about “Seven Pounds” is shrouded in a veil of mystery right from the start; from its gripping opening scene to its curious title which contains Shakespearean undertones, this is a powerful parable focusing on seemingly simple questions that can have morally defining answers, and it’s also one of the year’s best films.
Will Smith, in an Oscar-worthy performance, stars as Ben Thomas, an IRS agent still reeling from a great personal tragedy in his life. Most of the time, Ben seems either emotionally detached from everything or emotionally unpredictable; for instance, he can be unnecessarily abrupt and cruel one moment, yet caring and generous the next. Ben visits seven various strangers in Los Angeles in order to determine whether or not they are worthy of his generosity. He’s willing to grant each individual person more time to get their affairs in order, or he can burst out in sudden anger if he deems one of them unfit for his gift. Who exactly is this man and why is he so determined to drastically alter the lives of seven strangers? And, more importantly, what is he planning to do that will end up benefitting these people? To answer those questions would be to spoil the movie and with a film like “Seven Pounds”, the less you know about the specifics of the plot, the more rewarding the experience can be.
It’s really good to see Will Smith in a role that instead of requiring him to just be cool and heroic, instead needs him to be enigmatic and emotionally scarred. It’s certainly Smith’s best performance since his last dramatic turn in 2006’s “The Pursuit of Happyness”, and “Seven Pounds” shares the same creative team behind the camera. This time, Rosario Dawson joins in as Emily Posa, a woman with a terminal heart condition with whom Ben finds himself falling irrevocably and hesitantly in love with. Dawson gives a very fine performance here, bringing alive both a sadness that compares with Ben’s emotional detachment and also a bright loveliness that contrasts with it at the same time. But most importantly, Emily recognizes Ben’s inner solemnity and even though she may become impatient with his dodging of the questions about his personal life, she is still able to empathize with him. The two share a very emotional dance toward the end of the film that is filled with so much love, we feel saddened about the conclusion the film is inevitably heading toward. Not only does “Seven Pounds” function as a deeply powerful drama about how we can mold ourselves into better people by just performing the simplest, or sometimes complicated, acts of kindness, but it also works as a well-made romance.
The meaning behind the title “Seven Pounds” isn’t something easily understood right away. Without delving too much into the plot, I’ll try to explain the Shakespeare allusions that I mentioned it has earlier. If you’ll recall Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice”, a “pound of flesh” is what Shylock requests and receives as surety for a loan he makes to the merchant Antonio. But when the debt cannot be repaid and after Shylock becomes hurt and insulted by Antonio, Shylock demands literal fulfillment of the terms of the contract. So, “Seven Pounds” alludes to a type of atonement for Ben,as nowadays if someone insists upon having their “pound of flesh” they are asking for repayment of a debt, no matter how much suffering it will bring the debtor. But again, I don’t want to give too much away.
Director Gabrielle Muccino and screenwriter Grant Nieporte purposely pace the picture at a natural speed, which in turn sort of mirrors how these events would play out in real life. They only give clues about Ben’s hidden motives only when they think it necessary, never upstaging Ben’s journey with the secrets behind his personal grief. In fact, it’s not until the film’s final ten minutes that Ben’s motives are finally revealed and I thought it made for some of the most powerful final ten minutes of a film I’ve seen in recent years. But I think what I loved most about “Seven Pounds” is that it really is quite original; not once while I was watching the movie do I recall thinking “Oh, I’ve seen this before and it’s tired out,” and if I did, it certainly didn’t matter.
The main problem I had with Smith and Muccino’s “The Pursuit of Happyness” was that it felt emotionally manipulative; some people may find “Seven Pounds” emotionally manipulative as well, but I didn’t this time around. Although, I admit that I don't mind being emotionally manipulated if it's in a good film. In “Seven Pounds”, the more emotional scenes work better because they feel authentic. By the time the film wants us to shed tears, it doesn’t feel like the result of the writer beating us over the head with endless manipulations of the characters’ situations; this time, it feels like life. And most of the time, true poignancy comes from the stark reality of life itself.
**** out of ****
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vjFRnkMd1M
“Seven Pounds” is a film of patience. One that isn’t concerned with making the motives of its main character Ben Thomas (Will Smith) clear right away. This gives it a more ambiguous feel, which is most welcome considering how formulaic the majority of today’s Hollywood films are coming. Everything about “Seven Pounds” is shrouded in a veil of mystery right from the start; from its gripping opening scene to its curious title which contains Shakespearean undertones, this is a powerful parable focusing on seemingly simple questions that can have morally defining answers, and it’s also one of the year’s best films.
Will Smith, in an Oscar-worthy performance, stars as Ben Thomas, an IRS agent still reeling from a great personal tragedy in his life. Most of the time, Ben seems either emotionally detached from everything or emotionally unpredictable; for instance, he can be unnecessarily abrupt and cruel one moment, yet caring and generous the next. Ben visits seven various strangers in Los Angeles in order to determine whether or not they are worthy of his generosity. He’s willing to grant each individual person more time to get their affairs in order, or he can burst out in sudden anger if he deems one of them unfit for his gift. Who exactly is this man and why is he so determined to drastically alter the lives of seven strangers? And, more importantly, what is he planning to do that will end up benefitting these people? To answer those questions would be to spoil the movie and with a film like “Seven Pounds”, the less you know about the specifics of the plot, the more rewarding the experience can be.
It’s really good to see Will Smith in a role that instead of requiring him to just be cool and heroic, instead needs him to be enigmatic and emotionally scarred. It’s certainly Smith’s best performance since his last dramatic turn in 2006’s “The Pursuit of Happyness”, and “Seven Pounds” shares the same creative team behind the camera. This time, Rosario Dawson joins in as Emily Posa, a woman with a terminal heart condition with whom Ben finds himself falling irrevocably and hesitantly in love with. Dawson gives a very fine performance here, bringing alive both a sadness that compares with Ben’s emotional detachment and also a bright loveliness that contrasts with it at the same time. But most importantly, Emily recognizes Ben’s inner solemnity and even though she may become impatient with his dodging of the questions about his personal life, she is still able to empathize with him. The two share a very emotional dance toward the end of the film that is filled with so much love, we feel saddened about the conclusion the film is inevitably heading toward. Not only does “Seven Pounds” function as a deeply powerful drama about how we can mold ourselves into better people by just performing the simplest, or sometimes complicated, acts of kindness, but it also works as a well-made romance.
The meaning behind the title “Seven Pounds” isn’t something easily understood right away. Without delving too much into the plot, I’ll try to explain the Shakespeare allusions that I mentioned it has earlier. If you’ll recall Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice”, a “pound of flesh” is what Shylock requests and receives as surety for a loan he makes to the merchant Antonio. But when the debt cannot be repaid and after Shylock becomes hurt and insulted by Antonio, Shylock demands literal fulfillment of the terms of the contract. So, “Seven Pounds” alludes to a type of atonement for Ben,as nowadays if someone insists upon having their “pound of flesh” they are asking for repayment of a debt, no matter how much suffering it will bring the debtor. But again, I don’t want to give too much away.
Director Gabrielle Muccino and screenwriter Grant Nieporte purposely pace the picture at a natural speed, which in turn sort of mirrors how these events would play out in real life. They only give clues about Ben’s hidden motives only when they think it necessary, never upstaging Ben’s journey with the secrets behind his personal grief. In fact, it’s not until the film’s final ten minutes that Ben’s motives are finally revealed and I thought it made for some of the most powerful final ten minutes of a film I’ve seen in recent years. But I think what I loved most about “Seven Pounds” is that it really is quite original; not once while I was watching the movie do I recall thinking “Oh, I’ve seen this before and it’s tired out,” and if I did, it certainly didn’t matter.
The main problem I had with Smith and Muccino’s “The Pursuit of Happyness” was that it felt emotionally manipulative; some people may find “Seven Pounds” emotionally manipulative as well, but I didn’t this time around. Although, I admit that I don't mind being emotionally manipulated if it's in a good film. In “Seven Pounds”, the more emotional scenes work better because they feel authentic. By the time the film wants us to shed tears, it doesn’t feel like the result of the writer beating us over the head with endless manipulations of the characters’ situations; this time, it feels like life. And most of the time, true poignancy comes from the stark reality of life itself.