Film Review--Seven Pounds

Seven Pounds
directed by Gabriele Muccino
written by Grant Nieporte
starring Will Smith, Woody Harrelson, Rosario Dawson, Michael Ealy, Barry Pepper, Elpidio Carrillo, Robbine Lee, Joe Nunez, Bill Smitrovich, Tim Kelleher, Gina Hecht,

This film works both as a story of redemption as well as a well-wrought love story between two damaged individuals caught in a whirlwind of suffering and pain.

Will Smith plays Ben Thomas, an IRS agent who spends his time seeking out specific individuals and offering them tremendous breaks that he deems they deserve for mysterious reasons. Ben is something of a mercy peddler and he is determined to make sure that his targets reap the rewards of his generosity. As the film opens Ben is placing a 911 call telling the operator that he wants to report a suicide. The operator asks who the victim is and he says its him. So straight away we know Ben is exceedingly messed up and the film backtracks to tell us how he got that way.

We follow Ben as he makes his rounds. He gives away his house to a woman who has been a punching bag for her abusive boyfriend. We don’t quite understand Ben’s motives but they come awfully clear in the end and it still seems quite peculiar. The story is difficult to relate because so much is revealed in the final fifteen minutes. Indeed, everything is explained and the weeping is supposed to begin. Emile is dying from a weak heart and the film naturally doesn’t let her illness go untreated. I figured the big to-do about half way through. What I didn’t anticipate were the little details that make this a provocative film that is light on sentimentality. It’s effective for the most part because it doesn’t come off as particularly manipulative.

Will Smith is stoic, reserved and dead serious throughout this film. He hardly grins let alone smiles because his character is harboring a gut-wrenchingly awful personal story that haunts him every day. This is why Ben has gone on this mission to help those in need. It’s a cathartic exercise that he hopes will help salve his wounds although this is not his professed motive for completing these deeds. Smith looks so anguished for most of this film, so beside himself with grief, that it’s clear that he’s done something particularly horrific that somehow involves his wife who appears frequently in flashbacks within a flashback. We learn of a car wreck that killed seven people so it’s not a tremendous shock when the big secret agony is revealed.

The film resigns itself to a particularly pedestrian love story that takes up the second half of the film. It’s slow going at first and takes its time building up to anything. Ben and Emily spend a great deal of time together seeming to do nothing at all but be there for each other. They are both almost too fragile to touch one another and their few caresses feel like dynamite. Their relationship is the real focus of the film until the end when every sad and glorious thing is brought into the light. We know Ben lost his wife and that Emily is somewhat wary of men. Their interaction with each other might come across as chiched but the performances of the two leads sell it. It feels right that these two people are together and we want them to have a successful life together. In a way the end allows this to occur but not in a traditional romantic sense.

This film isn’t profound by any stretch of the imagination. It has a simple agenda which is to cause its audience to contemplate their own tendencies toward generosity and what lengths they might go to in order to truly help another in a precarious position. It all comes around nicely and the emotional payoffs at the end are genuine.

Early in the film we see Ben placing a phone call at a company who sells and ships meat products. He speaks to a man named Ezra Turner (Harrelson) a blind vegetarian who suffers the brunt of a series of insults before finally hanging up. We learn that Ben is testing Ezra here to determine if he is a good man slow to anger. Later we discover why this is so important and the realization is brought forth near the end in one of the film’s best scenes. There is a look on Harrelson’s face that is as moving as anything I’ve seen in the theater this year. It’s just a quick moment but it says everything that this film is trying to convey.

The character of Ben Thomas is a conundrum of hostility that he turns ably onto himself. His response to the terrible self-loathing that afflicts him is to force himself to give to those who are without. The strain on Ben’s face is apparent throughout and one can gage the struggle he is undertaking to carry out his self-imposed mission. Smith immediately grasps the audience and pulls us along as we try to come up with some definitive answers to the riddle at the center of the film. Granted, it’s not much of a mystery by the end but the relationship between Emily and Ben provide it with considerable weight and the film stays afloat because of it. It spends so much time with these two characters so by the final scenes their interaction becomes worth holding on to. It’s a bittersweet ending that defines the ultimate act of giving although the motivation for the gift is fraught with tremendous loss.

The penultimate scene involves a rather intriguing use of a box jellyfish that Ben has procured earlier in the film. The implementation of this creature provides the film with an exceedingly poetic spectacle as we are shown several sequences where the jellyfish are moving about their tanks. It’s lovely and trance-inducing and adds an element of grace to the story as it develops.

The actions that tie six of the seven people together are literal examples of the altruistic concept of giving of oneself. The film goes to great lengths to illustrate this concept in the most dramatic form possible. It isn’t at all subtle and admittedly it is something of a let down when everything is revealed. I kept wondering, “Is that really it?” Is that what all the fuss is about? Indeed, the film explains away every one of Ben’s good deeds but it feels like a cinematic trick more than a legitimate expression of one man’s effort to make good a wrong he has previously committed. Still, it’s the spine of the story and keeps the plot together however thin it gets at times.

The performances in this film are all adequate for the material. Will Smith plays it hard and low and for the most part conveys the reticence and sorrow that continue to plague his character throughout the film. Smith is nuanced here and gives off very few emotional cues. It’s nearly impossible to figure out his character’s motivation until the end when all is explained. This is a heartbreaking portrayal and Smith successful brings Ben’s pathos into focus. Rosario Dawson’s character Emily is delicate and perpetually on the cusp of shattering altogether. Dawson does a terrific job conveying Emily’s brittleness with her physiognomy and gestures. One completely believes that this is a woman who’s heart is exceedingly close to stopping her dead.

Overall, this film creates a very dark space and allows a single ray of light to sneak in by the end. The characters are all believable and successful rendered by an outstanding cast. Will Smith relates every ounce of anguish his character is working his way through. He doesn’t smile much and it’s clear that he is carrying a huge burden throughout the film. Smith captures the essence of a man who is at the end of his tether and clings to the only option that affords him even a semblance of the grace he experiences with his jellyfish. Ben seeks out specific individuals in dire circumstances that he knows he can help. His is not a genuine spirit of goodwill but rather a program designed to assuage his guilt. He is not necessarily a good person because he is attempting to rewrite his karma. Still, the film makes a point of saying that any effort to help is better than no effort at all.