21 Grams

ReelViews James Berardinelli

A stunning kaleidoscope of a motion picture - a mosaic of images that gradually resolves itself into a powerful tale of tragedy and redemption.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

You won't come out unaffected, because the depths of intimacy that the Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu plumbs here are so rarely touched by filmmakers that 21 Grams is tantamount to the discovery of a new country.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

At the very least, look for it on 10-best lists next month, and there's every chance it will be a strong contender at the Oscars. Filmmaking so sensitive and intelligent deserves its weight in honors.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Unstintingly explores and exposes excruciating pain, raw grief, ruinous vengeance and life-affirming resilience, creating human portraits that are uncommonly exhilarating in their honesty. This is cinematic art in its highest form.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

As darkness falls over the movie landscape comes the year's darkest and best movie of them all - Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

This sad, staggering drama should be seen: out of the grimness, and the profound calamity, you can almost taste life in your mouth.

Empire Rob Fraser

21 Grams strives for greatness, and that's precisely what it achieves.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

The movie itself is a miracle: tough, smart, relentless, provocative and, above all, serious.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

A stunning virtuoso performance by director, cast and crew. This movie knocks you out with an astonishing blend of hyper-realism, visual complexity and powerful themes.

Film Threat D.W. Smith

Trust me, if you have a thirst for a good, dark drama, this one is a big gulp.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

What gives the film a formalist kick is that the story unfolds piecemeal as a series of nonlinear moments. What gives it soul are the three lead actors who pull the pieces together with devastating power.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Mr. Penn has been praised lavishly for his work in "Mystic River," in a role that was no reach for him at all, but this is one of the stand-out performances of his career, layered and exquisitely nuanced. And, remarkably, he's only one-third of a stellar ensemble.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

You won't see more explosive acting this year.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Stunningly photographed, largely with a hand-held camera, by Rodrigo Prieto (another member of the "Amores Perros" team) on gritty locations in Memphis and Albuquerque, 21 Grams is also a visual tour de force - and a rare Hollywood product depicting class differences with any kind of honesty.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Blessed with one of the strongest casts of any American movie this year, this bravura film, with its radical structure, is full of risk and reward.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

One of the most original, and certainly among the best-acted films this year, 21 Grams focuses on people on the verge of dying, having survived death or grasping at the slender threads of new lives.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

A punch in the stomach of a movie. It is as ugly as it is beautiful, as full of peaks as of lows. It's a character-driven movie about people on an emotional edge who are ridding themselves of the things that can no longer work without inflicting damage.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Paradoxically, a movie that loses power the more you perceive what's actually going on in it. Laid end to end, the story is, to put it mildly, overwrought, fusing several cataclysms too many.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

A nearly unparalleled actor's showcase, the film boasts performances of impressive quality and quantity...Their complexity matches the film's.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

Each and every one of the movie's 125 minutes is a moment of searing truth.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

A devastating and weighty picture.

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

The payoff in 21 Grams comes not from watching characters achieve or overcome but from the recognition of their struggle not to give up the fight.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

21 Grams tells such a tormenting story that it just about survives its style. It would have been more powerful in chronological order, and even as a puzzle, it has a deep effect.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Despite juggled storytelling, the movie's compelling.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Aside from a little eleventh-hour pseudo-mysticism about death and the weight of the soul, the story is really little more than a unusually gripping thriller.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

Aimed at the brain, when it should have been one for the heart.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

As in "Amores perros," Iñarritu and Arriaga slice and dice the chronology, which helps distract from the warmed-over story elements and focus attention on the superior performances.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Watts, who has the most difficult scenes, is splendidly mercurial; what's surprising is that those professional storm clouds Penn and Del Toro are here as powerfully restrained as she is electrifying.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Uprooted from their home soil, González Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga can't quite manage to make this gloomy, improbable stew of romance, film noir and pseudo-metaphysical speculation hang together.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

While a splendidly acted and worthily grown-up movie, too often has the feel of a potboiling soap opera, with twists and turns that range from the grimly ironic to the absurdly sensational.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The fragmented style is distracting and ultimately annoying, robbing the story of its suspense and drive while contributing nothing except self-conscious style.

Variety David Rooney

Ambitiously structured in non-chronological fragments that form a fascinating puzzle, this raw drama about grief, guilt and redemption becomes ultimately overextended and overwrought in its final stretch.

Newsweek David Ansen

What keeps this movie honest is the characters, each of them a mass of conflicting instincts, virtues and vices. You know Gonzalez Inarritu comes from outside Hollywood because he doesn't divide the world into heroes and villains.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

Too-laborious meditation on life and death.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Luckily, Penn, Watts and Leo carry more weight than that; they keep this movie's two hours and five minutes from seeming like lost time.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Long on mood and moodiness, but at a loss as how to break any interesting human ground.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

It's so laden with foreboding, you want to get out from under it and gasp for air.

Slate David Edelstein

As usual with Penn, I don't completely buy the character, but I completely buy that he has brilliantly internalized SOMETHING. He goes to some weird psychological places, our Sean.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

It’s forceful, to be sure, but in a lurid way that suggests a telenovela that’s been baking in the sun too long.

The New Yorker David Denby

The kind of bad movie that makes a reviewer feel terrible. It has been put together with great sincerity, and yet, impassioned and affecting as some of it is, 21 Grams is also an arrogant failure. [24 November 2003, p. 113]

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Where "Amores Perros" was a feast of energy, wit and imagination, 21 Grams is like a starvation diet -- a movie that wallows so profoundly in its own misery that watching it is like atoning for some sin you didn't commit.