Movie: In the Valley of Elah

Ozayr and I went off to a movie this afternoon, taking our last chance while my parents are in town. The summer blockbusters all seemed kind of lame and worn now that school has begun, and the fall's Oscar contenders are not yet out in MN, and so we found ourselves in a remote theatre of the complex, watching a movie called In the Valley of Elah.

Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon play parents to a son who is fighting in Iraq, but since returning home has gone missing. The plot itself can be summed up in just a few words and lumbers along with the "help" of Charlize Theron, playing an investigator in the case. Despite this, the movie doesn't fail. The poignant glimpses into military life and its toll on the (mostly) young and (mainly) impressionable Americans fighting in Iraq move the film along - lifting it from a father-searching-for-son standard to something thought-provoking and deeply insightful. It's slow, almost on purpose. To give you time to think.

There are a whole crop of Iraq/military/war movies coming out lately, but this movie is a bit different as it takes place here in the USA. Accordingly, the questions it poses are relevant to all Americans here and now, making the film incredibly engaging. It gives a lot of food for thought... for instance: If you take hundreds of thousands of young Americans to Iraq and (A) essentially teach them to discard their previous moral standard, (B) diminish their sense of value for the human life, and (C) teach them to react to every threat with a hyper-defensive violent stance, then what kind of citizens are you bringing back into this country when their tour of duty is done? What implications does this have for our families and communities right here? Would Tommy Lee have even liked the man his son had become while serving his country? It doesn't sound like it...

The Valley of Elah is the valley where Goliath and David fought - you know the story. Goliath is felled by the seemingly smallest of threats - a simple stone from David's slingshot. This movie seems to ask, will America be similarly defeated, while caught off guard?

The acting is great. Tommy Lee Jones is perfectly restrained in a role that could have easily been overdone. Susan Sarandon's role is small, but she is ten times more memorable than any other woman in the movie. Every minute she is on-screen you are completely invested in her character. Paul Haggis wrote the script. He is Canadian and I guess it shows, as the movie is clearly leaning to the LEFT, but is sincerely beautiful/tragic in its ending.

It was a good surprise on a rainy Sunday afternoon.