Nobody really wants to be the bearer of bad news but somebody’s gotta do the job. Somebody has to tell the story of THE MESSENGER as well and Oren Moverman in his directorial debut approaches this with… a great amount of respect. THE MESSENGERS may not be the most compelling drama, it’s not a war movie either but it’s an excellent character study, on top of that, Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster both give remarkable, masterful performances, their best work yet.
In his most powerful performance to date, Ben Foster stars as Will Montgomery, a U.S. Army officer who has just returned home from a tour in Iraq and is assigned to the Army’s Casualty Notification service. Partnered with fellow officer Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) to bear the bad news to the loved ones of fallen soldiers, Will faces the challenge of completing his mission while seeking to find comfort and healing back on the home front. When he finds himself drawn to Olivia (Samantha Morton), to whom he has just delivered the news of her husband’s death, Will’s emotional detachment begins to dissolve and the film reveals itself as a surprising, humorous, moving and very human portrait of grief, friendship and survival.
Most movies revolve around certain occupations, in this cast, the focus is on Casualty Notification officers, Woody’s character, Stone calls it angels of death. Going door to door, the front line to tell the next of kin that their loved ones have died in battle. Racing CNN, Newspaper and every media outlet out there, these guys have to be the first before everything else. Stone is what you’d call an expert at what he does. Comes along Staff Sargeant, war hero Montgomery, played by one of the most under-appreciated actors of this generation, Ben Foster who’s always good at playing guys that have been pushed to the limit either by post traumatic stress or he simply loses it. Montgomery finds out that the girlfriend he loves is marrying someone else. So two guys with two different backgrounds working together. Sounds like a recipe for a TV series, especially considering the many cases and various reactions they get from the grieving family they’re forced to notify. Some can be physically abusive, some would spit on them, some would try to remain calm like they’re in denial but they’ll take it out on somebody else at another occasion. It’s a tough job, not for the faint of heart, and THE MESSENGER is clear on that.
Woody as always would come up with some jokes and smartass comments to ease the tension. When he breaks down in tears is when we’re reminded of the Oscar nominated Woody whose range of abilities as an actor is very wide.
It’s a great character study because one one hand we have Stone, a recovering alcoholics who obviously sets his own rules and applies them for a reason, so that no unnecessary attachment and complication could come out of the job itself. No hugging N.O.K., no touching either, no other words besides the statement that you’re ordered to tell them, anything more or less would be a violation. It seems like Stone is setting up these fences more to protect himself than the N.O.K. On the other hand, it upsets Montgomery that after the sacrifice he’s made for the army, he comes back only to find that he can’t make any type of connection, not even to his girlfriend, not even to the families he has to tell the bad news to. He confronts Stone at one point saying that “they’re just humans”, to me it suggests Montgomery screaming to the world that he’s just human, asking for somebody to talk with him on a personal level. He even tries to comfort another soldier who tells a harrowing story from his tour of duty but gets shot down because the man would rather keep things to himself.
He feels that his job should go beyond just delivering death news, which is why he feels the need to save the widow Olivia. Somehow he thinks she needs his presence, but that may not be the case.
The relationship between Montgomery and the widow Olivia, played by the great Samantha Morton is understandable but after a while, it loses its poignancy. It’s as if director Moverman is experimenting, trying to come up with anything profound with these two characters but it never reaches the surface because the chemistry is just not there. It never concludes in a satisfying manner, which is a shame actually because these are 2 great actors and yet their characters when they collide, won’t allow them to go far.
But once again, the performances of Woody and Foster, when they interact or when Montgomery finally feels comfortable to spill his story to Stone is worth noticing. It takes Stone to get off the bandwagon and start drinking again to become best buddies with Montgomery but they share something in common that no one else could fully fathom.
THE MESSENGER doesn’t give bad name to the military men and women, if any, it emphasizes the fact that the nightmares follow them home and everyday is a constant painful reminder and in the end, each other, brothers at arms, are all they’ve got.
* Place the cursor on the image below to check my grade for this film
