Hollywood has a hard time showing what the modern military is like. It either tries to recreate John Wayne running around Iwo Jima or Marlon Brando shouting inanities into a sweat stained jungle. Most concentrate on what happens over there, what it’s like to see -or not see- the enemy, what it does to men and women, how they react under fire. Few, if any, ever deal with what happens back at home, what it’s like after the shooting is over, and what sort of wounds remain.
Oren Overman’s directorial debut, The Messenger, does the spectacular job of portraying what it’s like in our military today and what the current war in Iraq has done to those who served and to the families that sacrificed their sons, daughters, husbands and wives.
Ben Foster plays a combat wounded army staff sergeant is assigned for his last three months to a post at the casualty notification office under an officer played by Woody Harrelson. Their job is to inform the next of kin of soldiers who die in the line of duty, no easy task, and one that gets them cried on, cursed at and thrown up on. Eventually Foster’s character develops a love interest in a widow played by Samantha Morton, but the main arc of the story is Foster’s character re-acclimating to society, readjusting after the war and dealing with the guilt and trauma of being the one who came back. Foster portrays a conflicted soldier with tremendous skill. Not only do I see a little of myself, there others just like him that I know. The scene of him listening to metal music by himself in a dimly light and bare apartment room is telling; here is the war hero alone, a kid barely an adult who doesn’t listen to CCR or know anything about World War II and is trying to forget what happened as best he can.
The bleakness is unrelenting throughout the entire film and even the few moments of humor are tinged with a bare, melancholy haze that render them impotent. But that’s alright because life looks bleak to a newly returned combat soldier who is deserted by his girlfriend, the military and society. And now that he has to deliver the bad news, the news of death, to people that don’t get it, who in the words of Harrelson’s character, thought “it was going to be like, Fear Factor?”
The hiss of cicadas and harsh fluorescent lights dominate a lot of the scenes contributing to the authenticity. The lighting is exactly how real life looks, not exactly right, a little off, almost painful and his characters look like real people; the girls a bit pudgy on their sides and in sweatshorts, men with scarred faces and everyman appearances.
Samantha Morton does a superb job, every time you are worried that the movie is going to turn into a Hollywood sap fest, she saves it and allows her character to act like a grieving widow who is both strong and incredibly shaken; guilt ridden by her husband’s death. Woody Harrelson gives one of the more memorable performances of his career, the drunk careerist officer he plays is spot on, an officer who has never seen combat and enjoys the inane rules of garrison a little too much.
What I appreciate most, and why “The Messenger” is one of the better “war” movies made by American cinema is that it portrays normal soldiers in an authentic way and tries to steer clear of having a political message. This movie is not the god bless America jingoism of “Saving Private Ryan” but neither is it the didactic anti-war “Platoon.” It shows reality, it shows the human cost of war to those at home and who survived. It shows the grieving fathers punching the messengers who bring the news of death and not Jake Gyllenhaal dry humping in the desert, frustrated at not being able to fight a war like in “Jarhead.” America needs to know the full story and cost of war for those who serve. This film comes closer than any other to actually telling that story.
