Friday
19Dec2008
Movie Review - 'Seven Pounds'
Friday, December 19, 2008 at 12:18AM | Seven Pounds
Starring Will Smith, Rosario
Dawson, and Woody Harrelson  |
Ben
Thomas has a secret and he has a mission. They’re intertwined, and both appear
to be testing Ben’s faith and patience, if not more. There is no joy in spoiling either, though you can probably put two and two
together from other reviews of
Seven
Pounds or trailers you might have seen. The story works so well
precisely because we don’t know what has occupied Ben’s mind and heart for so
long. We learn that he has to find seven complete strangers and that he can
change their circumstances. We learn that his circumstances changed completely
in seven seconds.Is Ben running a pyramid scheme of some sort? Are the seven strangers connected in a way that they don’t even know? Or is it random? Is it not random at all? As Roger Ebert declares in his review of this film, “I find this more interesting than a movie about a man whose nature and objectives are made clear in the first five minutes, in a plot that simply points him straight ahead.”
Director Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness) certainly doesn’t discourage his audience from asking and perhaps even trying to answer the many questions that pop up. Why has Ben (Will Smith) singled out Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson), a woman in the hole nearly $50,000, although her primary concern is her failing heart? Why does Ben call a customer service line, talk to the blind man on the other end of the line (Woody Harrelson), and berate him about not being able to see all the beauty in the world?
I have not seen enough of Muccino’s films to know if he is a great director. But I know what I saw in The Pursuit of Happyness, which is easier to describe than to illustrate with actors and a screenplay, and I know what I’ve seen with Seven Pounds, a film that resists the temptation to give the audience what it immediately wants because what it gets is so much better.
It’s no surprise that Muccino has chosen to work with Will Smith again or vice versa. The Pursuit of Happyness is the actor’s best performance, and this is a close second. But what the prior experience did for Smith is even more valuable. Remember that thing about great directors working without net? That goes double for great actors. And I can’t think of a huge movie star that has made the transition to great actor quicker or more subtly than Will Smith. It was that Oscar-nominated role in Happyness that will inform the rest of his career.
Theirs is a good on-screen marriage. They trust and challenge each other, and it’s thrilling to see. Seven Pounds also proves that Rosario Dawson is a pretty damn good natural talent. Her problem, which plagues most actresses, is the material she’s given. But she does not wilt here, and in fact, the movie is better for her vulnerable performance.
Credit should also be given to Grant Nieporte, the screenwriter. There is nothing in his past, jotting down sitcom dialogue for Eight Simple Rules and Sabrina, The Teenage Witch, that would make you think such a beautiful, human script was possible from him. Perhaps he also had a secret and a mission all this time.
Reader Comments (1)
I saw the movie tonight. It was fairly easy to figure out. Will Smith is a tremendous actor. The 7 pounds, I suppose, represent the debt he felt he needed to repay for the 7 people who were killed in the accident. The suicide scene seemed overdone...too much flopping around and grabbing of the shower curtain. Apparently he felt he deserved to suffer, but it was a bit "hokey".