In Sophocles’ Antigone it is said that "No one loves the messenger who is the bearer of bad news." Oren Moverman’s film could not have expressed this better, suited to our times. Very well casted and directed, the film shines through the scenes where Will Montgomery (wonderfully portrayed by Ben Foster), a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant returning home from Iraq, joins Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson), to give notice to the families of fallen soldiers. Underplayed dramatically, as it should, those are very powerful moments. The director and cast are able to make us, the audience, feel the unbearable tension in the moments before the messengers meet the deceased soldiers’ next of kin – tension that must be shooting the messengers’ adrenaline levels sky-high. And in the moments that follow, the pain is projected forcefully off the screen: the sense of injustice when a parent accuses, insults and even attacks the messengers upon hearing the news, despite knowing it is pain that is the driving force. The messengers must remain restrained. And the same restrain is also required when another parent breaks into pieces – the protocol does not allow reaching out and lending a hand. We are made to feel that pain. The film does not need to speak clichés about the evlis of war. It is not necessary much as it is not necessary to declare its noon when the sun is at the middle of the sky.
But the message delivery scenes, as powerful as they are, only serve as backdrop for other topics the film sets to address. Of these the main theme seems to be the known issue of war veterans unable to fit back in. Moverman attacks this from a somewhat less traditional angle, showing not only the isolation such veterans have from civilians who never experienced war, but isolation also from other soldiers and people you would have expected to understand them better. The film is very subtle, and in that it may fly over some viewers’ heads unnoticed.
Kudos to Oren for a well-delivered first installment of what I hope will be many more directorial creations.