Dir. Jim Sheridan, US, 2009, 105 mins
Cast: Tobey Maguire, Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal
Review by Carol Allen
This is the English language remake of Danish director Suzanne Bier's 2004 film Brødre . The domestic side of the story is moved from Denmark to the United States, but still all these years later the theatre of war which brings about the tragedy is the same one - Afghanistan. It's rare for such movies to live up to their European originals - the American version of Three Men and a Baby for example was ghastly, totally lacking the genuine charm of the French film it was modelled on, although Christopher Nolan's remake of Insomnia pretty much pulled it off. In this case, despite a good cast and director, the film falls short of Suzanne Bier's work, but it's certainly not without merit.
The story is based in small town in America. The brothers of the title are Sam and Tommy Cahill. Sam (Maguire) is a family man, devoted to his wife Grace (Portman) and their two daughters. He is also a marine, about to return to Afghanistan for another tour of duty. Tommy (Gyllenhaal), his unstable younger sibling, is the black sheep of the family, just out of prison and staying with them. When Sam is reported killed in combat, Tommy becomes a reformed character, taking care of Grace and the children, doing up her kitchen and generally becoming the good brother. Almost inevitably an attraction develops between them but it is an attraction that Grace resists. Then it emerges that Sam is not dead but has been held hostage and brutally tortured by the Taliban. When he eventually returns home, he is a changed man. Withdrawn and traumatised by his experiences, he becomes convinced that his brother and his wife have been sleeping together in his absence.
The cast are all good. Portman is beautiful and warm as the wife and Gyllenhaal and Maguire convince as brothers, although Sam Shepherd is a touch heavy handed in his performance as their father, a former marine with a drink problem, who bluntly favours Sam over Tommy. The most powerful scenes are the ones of Sam's incarceration in Afghanistan and the terrible thing he is forced to do by his captors to save his own life - a scene which is still shocking, even if you've seen the original film. Maguire, sporting an unflatteringly brutal military haircut, is particularly good and the way he changes from rather innocent and loving husband and father and devoted career soldier to total breakdown and paranoia is impressive and moving.
The problem is though that this in not a film about war as such but about the effect of war on domestic life and retationships, but set against the power of the Afghan sequences and their effect on Sam, life back in America and the somewhat pallid attraction between Tommy and Grace seems by contrast trivial and almost pointless. If this is the life that their young men are dying for, it doesn't seem worth the candle. Despite some charming moments, as Tommy becomes the good uncle, the power of those war scenes overwhelms the human drama back home. It is though worth seeing, particularly for Maguire's performance, which demonstrates the extent to which he has matured as an actor.
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