Charlize Theron wears the band-aid on her nose to make the obvious Chinatown connection in Paul Haggis's In the Valley of Elah, which I saw last night.

I'll withhold my review for now, but I'll be interested to see if folks think this is:

a) a profound, heartbreaking drama
b) an Oscar-worthy work of art
c) a fairly standard detective story juiced up with lots of political commentary on the Iraq War and America's losing battle against drugs
d) an cynical attack on the U.S. military
e) a damning expose on the the U.S. military
f) a broad anti-American rant
g) a laughably heavy-handed bit of doomsaying about America's future
h) nostalgia for the Cold War or WWII, when it was apparently easy to tell "good guys" from "bad guys"
i) some combination of the above
j) or something else entirely...

I was impressed by many things in this film - especially the cast.

But there is one moment in the movie that gave it a bitter aftertaste... at least for me.

Wait until you see it, and then come back and let's talk about it.*

* It's the film's final moment.

Back in 1989, I made a satirical little video of my high-school graduating class. The video ended with my classmates all lined up against the wall in the corridor near our lockers. They all scowled, morose, supposedly thinking about the future, while something like a dirge played in the background. The camera then rose to focus on a red fire-alarm bell on the wall, zoomed in, and then everything went black and silent. It was meant to be a joking reference to the kind of doomsaying and heavy-handed symbolism that fills the poetry of cynical and depressed high school students.

That last moment in Elah amounts to just about the same thing, except that he intends it seriously. You can see it coming... that is, if you're cynical enough to assume that Haggis is actually going to go there. When I realized he might actually be setting us up for just such a moment, I thought, "No, wait, no... he wouldn't... he won't... please tell me he's not going to... OH NO, I CAN'T BELIEVE HE DID IT!!!" It's such a heavy-handed gesture, such an exclamation point where some subtelty would have been nice, that I almost choked. But the Seattlites around me nodded severely as if this was some kind of deep, deep observation. And that's when I remembered... oh, yes, this is the guy who wrote and directed Crash.

We had been informed that the screening would be followed by an audience discussion about war and the lasting damage that it does to soldiers and families. But knowing my town, and suspecting that the "discussion" would quickly devolve into hysterical anti-Bush rants, emotional anti-war sermons, and elaborate descriptions of how America is the source of all evil in the world, I fled the theater, hoping to find some space in which to reflect on what I had just seen and sort through what really worked and what really didn't.

You know, the first thing that went through my head when I saw this thread was... "How unusual. This is the second film that Charlize Therone has been in that includes the words 'in the Valley' in the title.

My second thought, after checking out the synopsis at IMDb, was that the synopsis for Elah bears a striking resemblance to the Jack Lemmon film Missing. Did you see many parrallels between the two films, Jeffrey? Assuming you've seen Missing, that is.

Never seen Missing. But that's interesting. Now, I'm curious.

Another note: Frances Fisher is fearless. In ways I'm not sure I admire, but yes, fearless.

A caution: There are a lot of hooters in the movie. I think that's the technical term, considering the context in which they appear.

Jeffrey, do you know who was supposed to lead that discussion? My uncle, Andrew Himes, did a couple things like that when his documentary "Voices in Wartime" opened a couple years ago, and I know he is still doing it every once in a while. If he did lead it, I doubt it devolved into what you feared.

Wow... it very well could have been him. I didn't catch his name.

And if that's the case, I'm glad to hear it! I've survived too many public rant-sessions in Seattle, so I tend to bolt for the door as soon as I see someone inviting crowd-participation in a "discussion" about war.

But if your uncle has the ability to turn such an event into something productive and meaningful, more power to him!

I'm quite interested in that project, actually. I have a friend who worked on it too. Any chance you might contact your uncle about an interview?

Peter Debruge says the movie should be called "Flags of Our Sons". (For those who've forgotten, writer-director Paul Haggis worked on the screenplay for Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers.)

Variety is the first to start pointing out the problems.

Jeffrey, I've sent you an e-mail so this thread doesn't stray too far off topic.

The reviews bending over backward to say nice things about this movie are beginning to be laughable -- and that's from someone who places David Edelstein among his favorite film critics!

Ross says it well:

Clearly there are people who really like the cinema of Paul Haggis - David Denby, for instance. And more power to them. But those critics sensible enough to recognize that the man makes lousy movies have an obligation, I think, to come out and say it - even when they agree with the political statement Haggis happens to be making. The alternative is to produce weird reviews like this one, from David Edelstein:

Paul Haggis’s In the Valley of Elah is vital in spite of its mustiness. As a narrative, it’s clunky. As a whodunit, it’s third-rate. As the drama of a closed-off man’s awakening, it’s predictable. But Haggis has got hold of a fiercely urgent subject: the moral devastation of American soldiers serving in (and coming home from) Iraq. At its heart are deeper mysteries—and a tragedy that reaches far beyond anything onscreen.

So basically, if you ignore the plot and the characters and just use Elah as a visual aid for meditating on the awfulness of the Iraq War, you'll like the film. ...

I'm guess I'm just not sure it's a film critic's job to forgive a director for making a bad movie - a musty, clunky, repetitive, contrived and predictable movie, if we believe Edelstein's own review - because Paul Haggis happens to have his heart in the right place.

The movie keeps changing its mind regarding what it's about, and it ends up being so unfocused that it doesn't have much to say about anything. It closes with a broad-stroke expression that just basically says, "America's screwed." Great. Thanks, Paul.



Wait... so, he thinks the movie is saying that a large number of soldiers are involved in porn, drugs, and [caution, spoilers] violence against each other just because we went to Iraq? Dubya's to blame for the fact that America's finest are crowding into strip joints and running around with hookers? Or does he mean they were "morally devastated" before they went to Iraq? Is he implying that moral devastation is something that happened to them?

I kinda suspect this stuff was going on long before we went to Iraq. I'm not saying Iraq hasn't messed a lot of soldiers up. But if Edelstein is right about the "fiercely urgent subject," then I think Haggis needs to dig deeper.

David Edelstein wrote:
: But Haggis has got hold of a fiercely urgent subject: the moral devastation of American soldiers serving in (and coming home from) Iraq.

Huh? How is this film's grim, dark, cynical portrayal of American soldiers serving in Iraq any different from all the portrayals we have seen of American soldiers in Vietnam or in "good wars" like World War II? (Let us not forget that Paul Haggis co-wrote Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima.) What is there about this film that comments UNIQUELY on the conflict in Iraq, that cannot be lumped in with all the other portrayals of soldiers behaving badly and/or dealing with lethal amounts of stress etc.?

Note: These soldiers previously served in Bosnia. But apparently, the way this movie sees it, Bosnia had no particularly negative effect on these people, whereas Iraq did, because Iraq is just "a fucked-up place". What, and the Balkans AREN'T!? (How weird that this film is going wide the same weekend that The Hunting Party does.)

And I repeat: What about Vietnam? I mean, the Tommy Lee Jones character actually SERVED there in the 1960s. And we're supposed to believe that it SHOCKS him that some accidents happen, some soldiers commit atrocities, and some veterans go a little crazy!?

Jeffrey Overstreet wrote:
: The movie keeps changing its mind regarding what it's about, and it ends up being so unfocused that it doesn't have much to say about anything. It closes with a broad-stroke expression that just basically says, "America's screwed." Great. Thanks, Paul.

Yeah, I really like some of the performances and a few individual scenes (e.g. the bedtime story, which incidentally tells us where the movie's title comes from but doesn't give us any clue as to what the film's title is supposed to MEAN), but the way certain characters kept changing on us began to remind me of the two-dimensional pancake-flipping character reversals that were strewn all over Crash, Haggis's previous directorial effort.

I put a request in at the library today for Deer Hunter to see if I can see any connections with Elah. Haven't seen Elah yet (maybe this weekend) and haven't paid attention to any plot discussions, but it seems from what I've read it deals with the damage done to those in the war, as did Deer Hunter. Deer Hunter was the first film to deal with the psychological effects of Vietnam -- and it was way after the war had ended. Elah comes out while war is still in progress.

Darrel Manson wrote:
: Deer Hunter was the first film to deal with the psychological effects of Vietnam -- and it was way after the war had ended.

Three years after, in fact.

(Addendum: The IMDb says Coming Home came out in February 1978 but The Deer Hunter, which premiered in December 1978, didn't go into wide release until February 1979.)

: Elah comes out while war is still in progress.

And it is set three years ago. And the main character is named DEERfield. Hmmm.

BTW, question: What do those who have seen the film make of the references to the soldiers' previous experiences in Bosnia? How involved in Bosnia was America in the years before 2004? (I gather that the Bosnian war "officially" came to an end in December 1995, but you know how things go...) I finished my review a few hours ago and made a passing reference to the Bosnian situation and how the film failed to explain WHAT was different between Bosnia and Iraq, and then, after filing the review, I began to wonder just what these guys would have been exposed to in Bosnia in the first place. The film is set in November 2004, and the actor who plays Tommy Lee Jones's son turned 25 a few months after filming was completed, so... depending on when he joined the army, he could have been stationed in Bosnia as early as the late 1990s, right? So he wouldn't have seen any "major combat operations", as it were, in Bosnia, but beyond that...?

And WHAT is with this TITLE? Exactly HOW does the David-and-Goliath story relate to the FILM?

Not sure how connected Kosovo is to the Bosnian war, but there was bombing there in 99.

Darrel Manson wrote:
: Not sure how connected Kosovo is to the Bosnian war, but there was bombing there in 99.

Right, I figured there had to be SOMEthing going on around then, partly because I saw a documentary in the early '00s on the American military chaplains who counselled the pilots who dropped those bombs. (The film was part of a Dutch series of documentaries based on the Ten Commandments. I imagine this was the "Thou Shalt Not Kill" episode.)

But bombing is kind of remote, compared to the on-the-ground stuff we generally see in Iraq these days (and in this film).

Peter, here's a place for you to look to see how things might fit in. An Army website on their mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina 1995-2004

a) no. It's not Haggis's best (but then I liked Crash and I wasn't taken aback by the ending of this film.)
B) probably not. The story isn't that impressive. Good performances, but Jones' performance is pretty much one note (that's all his character's given). He does that note very well, but still...
c) I'd leave it at fairly standard detective story.
d) no
e) no
f) no
g) maybe a little
h) I doubt it

It's also not a very clear look at the damage to the psyche (meaning soul rather than mental health) done by war. I picked up The Deer Hunter today and will watch it early next week and expect that that one will be head and shoulders better than Elah if that is what one is looking for or of that's what this film wanted to portray.

I think I may not be the best audience for this film because of the focus I had a few months ago on Iraq war docs. All the terrible revelations that come up in this film, I've heard from the mouths of people for whom they are a reality they have to live with. So this was just a fictionalized rehash in which the plot didn't quite all fit together for me.

I'd have to look back at my M$B review, but I think one of the few things I disliked about that film was that Haggis telegraphed his punches. He still does. I could tell which lines I wanted to write down in the first 45 minutes because they'd be important later on.



You mean besides Hank's explanation of the story to the detective's son David and the meaning of how to battle monsters?

Darrel Manson wrote:

: : And WHAT is with this TITLE? Exactly HOW does the David-and-Goliath story relate to the FILM?
:
: You mean besides Hank's explanation of the story to the detective's son David and the meaning of how to battle monsters?

Yeah, you conquer fear. (The point is made at least TWICE.) But who feels fear in this film? Hank's son Mike. So what is he supposed to do with this fear? Go fight a monster? But who? Quit the army? That ain't what David did.

I can think of one or two other ways to interpret the David-and-Goliath reference within this film -- one or two subversive ways, dare I say -- but the way the film keeps harping on the idea that the David-and-Goliath story is about conquering your FEAR makes me think that those other interpretations are not so important, maybe even not so intentional.

I expect it could reflect a Scientology interpretation of the story.

Maybe a bit more that I found wanting in this film: Susan Sarandon was wasted. Like Jones's one note, she did what she did well, but her role cried out to be more. She's not just the wife of this obsessive/compulsive vet. She doesn't follow orders. She flies down to see the body, even after he tells her not to. She's pissed that (in her mind at least) he's led two sons to their deaths. (Eldest son was also named David, btw). But those few scenes never really let us get into her.

Darrel Manson wrote:
: I expect it could reflect a Scientology interpretation of the story.

Ha! Yeah, I thought it was kinda interesting that a Scientologist would make a film with a biblical title/metaphor like that.

Hmmm. Given all the hoo-ha we've heard lately about Scientologist attitudes towards psychiatry (cf. Tom Cruise's comments a year or two ago), I wonder how that would affect Haggis's depictions of soldiers dealing with post-traumatic stress, etc.

: Maybe a bit more that I found wanting in this film: Susan Sarandon was wasted.

Heck, at least she gets a couple of good dramatic scenes. What about James Franco? Like, why hire an actor of his calibre/stature -- he's a major supporting player in big films like the Spider-Man trilogy, a leading man in small films like Flyboys and The Great Raid, and he even does cameos AS HIMSELF in films like Knocked Up -- just to answer the army's phones in a couple scenes?

: But those few scenes never really let us get into her.

I can see (and sort-of agree with) your point. Then again, her absence from the final scenes kind of gives those scenes an extra clout, no? You wonder where she's gone, or what has happened to her (and thus you wonder about the state of her marriage to Jones, etc.).

And FWIW, I didn't find Jones all THAT one-note. The scene with his old army buddy has its own texture, and the scene where he tells his wife about the death of their son over the phone was pretty powerful and different from the rest of the film, for example.

Hmm. There isn't an ecumenical jury at Venice, but Signis (the Catholic organization that takes part in ecumenical juries) gives an award there. They gave it to Elah.

Christopher Orr, who calls the film "dour" and "one note," wonders what to make of the title:

Around the midpoint of the film, crusty old Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones) is asked to tell a bedtime story to the young son of Detective Sanders (Charlize Theron). What he tells the boy is the tale of David and Goliath, whose battle, he explains, took place in the Valley of Elah. The morale: "That's how you fight monsters. You lure them in close to you. You look them in the eye. And you smack them down."

How exactly does this parable fit with writer-director Paul Haggis anti-war message? David Edelstein asked the obvious question: "Are the American soldiers or the Iraqis meant to be David? Or are the Davids the Americans at home--the ones who need to confront a ruthless and multi-tentacled administration?" David Denby takes a slightly different tack: "The title, I think, is partly ironic. David fought Goliath in the Valley of Elah. Hank sees himself as a latter-day David, slaying monsters, and this is a view that he has clearly passed on to his son, but the movie suggests something else--that Hank's notion of military uprightness has vanished, and America, including Mike, has become monstrous."

If I read him correctly, I think Denby is pointing in more or less the right direction.

But if the point of the film is that Tommy Lee Jones's worldview has died, and his interpretation of the story with it, why does the film go on to show Charlize Theron REPEATING this story in such an upbeat fashion to her son? Why does the film show her son LEARNING from the story and conquering his own fear of the dark?

I'm sure those are good questions, Peter, but I can't answer. Haven't seen the film. I thought Orr's review might be worth pointing to, but maybe he's off base.

FWIW, David Edelstein comments on Ross Douthat's comments in his blog post on Redacted:

In his Atlantic blog, right-winger Ross Douthat makes fun of my review of Paul Haggis's In the Valley of Elah, which also touches on the moral devastation of Americans in Iraq. I said in my column that although it's a clunky piece of storytelling and a third-rate mystery, it's also a powerful and important film. Douthat sees this as representative of a liberal tying himself up in knots to praise a movie he dislikes but agrees with politically. If he thinks those are knots, he should read me on Michael Moore!

This is one of the most complicated parts of film criticism -- of any criticism. When I was at the Village Voice in the eighties, I was occasionally maligned in-house for not embracing movies with the correct political line just because they were, um, terrible. That still happens: As much as I agreed with the critique of racism in Haggis's Crash, I thought -- and wrote -- that the film was laughably contrived. Let cowboys wear pantyhose under their chaps, but spare me the quasi-religious couplings of Brokeback Mountain. The Situation made many of the same (important) points about the chaos in Iraq as the stupendous documentary No End in Sight, but so maladroitly (from a dramatic standpoint) that it was difficult to champion.

That said, anyone who thinks that politics shouldn't be a factor in considering the merits of a film -- especially now, in the midst of this catastrophic occupation -- is being perverse. There were many reasons to praise In the Valley of Elah, and one of them is that it speaks eloquently and urgently to horrors in Iraq and the horrors, on the home front, to come.

So it's "clunky" but "eloquently" so?

FWIW, here is the Playboy article on which the film was sort-of based.