Brothers (***½)

Directed by: Jim Sheridan

Starring: Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, Sam Shepard, Clifton Collins Jr., Bailee Madison, Taylor Geare, Patrick Fleuger

Seen: January 20^th 2010

***½ Out of ****

Based on Sussane Bier’s 2004 Danish film Brødre, Brothers stands tells the story of, as is evident from the title, two Brothers, Captain Sam (Maguire) and Tommy (Gyllenhaal) Cahill, and the complicated relationship between them. Sam is on the verge of shipping out to Afghanistan for his fourth tour, and Tommy is about to be released from prison after serving time for armed robbery. The two brothers are about as polar as opposites go. Sam is married to his high school sweetheart, Grace (Portman), who does not like Tommy, the charming player.

Their father Hank (Shepard) has a difficult relationship with Tommy, whom he can’t bring down enough. He is the son that always quit when the going got tough, unlike Sam, who was the hero. Sam’s daughters, Isabelle (Madison) and Maggie (Geare), openly tell Tommy that Grace does not like him, and the two girls are also quite mature and very understanding of the human condition for their ages (Isabelle more so). But then Sam and another neighborhood friend, Private Joe Willis (Fleuger), go M.I.A. in Afghanistan, assumed dead, and the tables slowly but surely start turning. In Tommy’s attempts to help Grace (he has some friends help him fix up her kitchen and he helps with the girls, among other things), he becomes more than just the criminal brother of her hero-husband, he becomes a person. And in Sam’s Taliban torturing he also becomes something else, something worse. Tommy and Grace are drawn to each other by their common cause for heartbreak, and when Sam is rescued and brought home an unnerving tension rises between the three leads.

Brothers is a fascinating study of the power of human interaction. When a social/familial outcast is seen as someone meaningful and given a little decent humanity, it changes that person for the better. The converse is also shown: if a hero’s humanity is ripped from him it can have devastating effects. But there is always more to the story and it’s continuance, and the movie gives viewers the opportunity to decide for themselves exactly how things work out for the family afterwards.

Jim Sheridan (who previously directed such great movies as In America, The Boxer, In the Name of the Father and My Left Foot) crafts a good motion picture where nothing is overly sentimental, melodramatic or manipulative; he simply tells the story as is. He gets some great performances out of the actors as well, with Maguire and Gyllenhaal outstanding as the two brothers who love each other in spite of all that happens, Portman giving a good performance as the tormented and torn-in-two Grace, and finally, but certainly not the least, Madison is outstanding as Isabelle – a great young actress who started her career in 2006 already. Music is also used to good effect in Brothers, with U2 getting their own credit for “Winter”, a great song written specifically for the movie.

Brothers is a brilliant film, and it reminded me of a Roger Ebert quote: “No great movie can be depressing.” (Possibly paraphrased). The story might be dark and gloomy, but the movie will lift your spirits – leaving room for hope on the redemptive power that comes with time and support.