Assignment: watch the film, and then write a summary/analysis of the film.
In my first semester of this year I did this, and I got a top mark for the paper below:
BROTHERS’/US/ 2009/Jim Sheridan/Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, Sam Shepard.
Genre: Drama
Brief summary A young Marine Captain, Sam Cahill, is about to be detached to Afghanistan to go on a mission, leaving behind a young wife, Grace, and two small daughters. A few days before deployment, the Marine goes to the local prison to fetch his brother Tommy, who is being released after a sentence for armed robbery. While in Afghanistan the older brother is reported dead. The younger brother has meanwhile reintegrated into his family, who appreciate the warmth and help he is giving to his widowed sister-in-law. He enjoys his re-adjustment into society, and being able to help and play with his little nieces. The sons’ father Hank, initially disappointed and angry with his younger son for failing to achieve in life, also warms to him. In an intimate scene Grace and Tommy kiss briefly, showing that they could become a couple.
The audience then discovers that the Marine Captain is not dead but has been taken prisoner by the Taliban. His captors force him to beat his subordinate Private to death – the only other man taken captive with him. Eventually he is freed during an American raid, and returns home to his family. Although at first sight he appears fairly normal, it becomes clear that the untold events in Afghanistan have damaged him deeply. The man, once fully trusting of his brother and his wife, now suspects them of having had a sexual relationship in his absence. In a climax scene the Marine is seen destroying his kitchen, shooting and waving a gun around outside in the night, and almost killing himself. It becomes clear that he needs to go to a clinic for the psychological damage done during the war. The Military Police take him into custody. In a private moment with his wife he confides to the murder of his subordinate soldier, thus explaining the reason for his instability.
Setting The film “Brothers” is set in contemporary United States, in a small town which celebrates its marines stationed in Afghanistan. The film focuses on a simple American family of three generations.
The second setting for the film is a war scenario in Afghanistan, involving a hard winter battle scene with Taliban fighters, as well as United States marines in action.
Characters Hank: A Vietnam War Veteran father/grandfather (played by Sam Shepard) who is proud of one of his sons, and disappointed with his other son. In general he is a good man with clear ideas about right and wrong.
Elsie: Hank’s second wife. An underdeveloped character.
Sam: The eldest son. Sam is a captain in the Marines, and is responsible for a military unit. He is in love with his wife, and his daughters. He also enjoys his job immensely, showing no fear about his imminent detachment to Afghanistan, and the possibility of dying in action.
Tommy: the younger son. He ‘never made it’, and is in jail for armed robbery. Tommy is not at all like his brother Sam; he is an un-achiever, smokes pot, and has tattoos on his neck and hands. He comes out of jail shortly before his brother goes to war, and is fetched by his brother from the prison gates. The two brothers have a bond.
Grace: Sam’s wife. She is attractive, level-headed and a good mother. She is dearly in love with her husband and wishes he didn’t have to go to Afghanistan.
The daughters: Isabelle – the elder daughter, 9 years old, and Maggie – the younger daughter, 5 years old. Both daughters are lively, cheeky and wise. They also don’t want their father to go to Afghanistan. They feel safe in their family, and express themselves over family matters without reserve. Due to their spontaneity and candidness they are the heart and conscience of the film’s development.
Interpretation of events/symbols
THE FAMILY The film “Brothers” portrays a contemporary and realistic situation. The family is middle-class and un-assuming with regard to status. They have a simple house and a big, expensive car. This would be a normal division of wealth within an average American family in this day. Thus, the film will appeal to a broad spectrum of viewers because it is fairly easy to identify with this ‘typically American’ depiction.
THE KITCHEN The old kitchen in the family home of the Marine Captain Sam, plays a central role in the development of the characters. At first the kitchen is rough and old-fashioned, being an important element as an expression of a simple, low-key family in America. Later, the troubled (grand) father Hank makes a remark about the state of the kitchen, whilst feeling the despair of having lost his eldest son. It then becomes a vessel for change, when the ex-convict brother Tommy refurbishes the kitchen in an act of goodwill. The development of the Tommy character is aided by the change in the kitchen from a person able to change from being involved in crime and destruction, to becoming willing to be part of growth and improvement. When the Marine Captain Sam comes home from the war, he busies himself in the fine, new kitchen, arranging glasses in the cupboard. This shows signs of psychological instability. In the same night he destroys the kitchen in a fit of irrational rage. The kitchen is then symbolic for the fact that he himself, father of this family, will stand in the way of – even destroy – the very growth and improvement instigated by his brother, as a result of psychological war damage. Ironically, the brother “most unlikely to succeed” becomes blessed with the ability to lead.
THE TWO YOUNG DAUGHTERS are symbolic of the heart and conscience of the family. They speak candidly about how they feel about what happens in their family, and are sharp observers. They are the hope for the future, and instinctively recognise the goodness in their uncle Tommy, to be the one who will provide them and their mother with emotional stability, rather than their own father. The daughters speak the unspoken (i.e. Maggie, the younger girl, greets Tommy at his first visit back from jail, saying “My mother doesn’t like you”; the elder Izzie later says “They had sex every night you were away!”). The girls symbolically form the fabric of what holds the family together.
My personal all-over opinion of the film
A box-office success
I was disappointed with the film “Brothers”. The story line was a thin and predictable Hollywood-contraption. The central characters were not fully developed, but remained painfully superficial. “Brothers” is clearly a dependent Hollywood production that stayed faithful to a mass-audience. I assume, in an attempt to reach a large audience and produce a financially successful film, the director may have had to resign from any personal opinion he may have about military presence in Afghanistan. Thus, this film was not borne out of the personal motivation of a particular director to shed an individual social or political viewpoint. The concept of the problems which arise ‘back home’, in the families of war-time soldiers, paired with the stellar cast of Maguire, Gyllenhaal and Portman, will be a sure box-office magnet. No more is required; it simply keeps the film economy wheel turning.
Standpoint on military presence in Afghanistan
In my opinion the war scenes in this film are neutral with regard to a possible standpoint on American military presence in Afghanistan; so neutral in fact, that they could have been left out all together. Reference to the events in Afghanistan which support the plot in this story would have been sufficient.
Questionable title
Moreover, the development in the relationship between the two brothers is also abandoned halfway through the film, thus rendering the title “Brothers” useless. Before deployment, the marine Captain takes the time to receive his brother out of prison. The two head home in his car, accompanied by invigorating and adventurous music. The atmosphere suggests a loving bond that clearly transcends their evident differences of status and achievement, and holds the promise of something untold. When the war trauma victim returns from Afghanistan and is harassed by paranoia about the possibility that his brother has been sleeping with his wife, no previous bond between brothers has any constructive or postitive effect on events. If this is an intentional aspect of plot-development in the film, it still misses its mark due to a. Lack of clarity, and b. Weak acting on part of Jake Gyllenhaal, particularly in the climax scene, in which he half-heartedly tries to reach out to his brother, who is freaking out in the street, holding a gun. The initial relationship between the brothers had a unique feel to it, which could have aided plot-development, giving the film a special overall character, but this theme was unfortunately left un-exploited.
A husband-wife relationship dominates the film
Instead, the initially strong and later failing relationship between husband and wife plays a central role, revealing the actual central theme in the film: a husband-wife relationship. A number of possible tools to enhance the otherwise thin story are also neglected here: for instance, a development in the character of the Captain’s wife, Grace. Generally, she comes across as being level-headed and in charge of her emotions, providing stability to her children and not crumbling under the loss of her husband. But, as the film progresses new scenes provide her with the chance to grow, but they are left unused. Thus, the character of Grace remains ‘safe’, and “gorgeous” – she is referred to, in two separate scenes, as being ‘gorgeous’. The attractive Natalie Portman is sure to add to the box-office success of this film, indeed without her, it would be nothing. (Whereas ‘Brokeback Mountain’ didn’t need chicks to keep you watching.) To the experienced and critical viewer one could say that the producer of the film is calling out to the director not to take any chances with the audience, and contain the characters to a ‘green zone’. In the fireplace scene Grace is seen to take a toke of a joint, suggesting personal liberty to some extent, but it is only a small step. Her role as tree trunk to her husband’s traumatized family is more important than her ‘breaking out’.
Neglected use of the letter
The letter written to Grace by her husband in the event of him dying in action is also an anti-climax. This letter is yet another story-development tool left unattended to. One sees the main actor, Captain Sam Cahill, write his wife a letter he hopes she will never have to receive. When she receives it she puts it away unread for the greater part of the film. Eventually, she opens it, and reads it. However, it says nothing other than professing his love for her and their girls. This is something that the audience already knows. Whereas, with little extra imagination, an alternative content to such a letter could be used to propel the film to a new level. I see the neglect of the letter as a missed opportunity and a further confirmation of intended box-office shallowness.
Grandfather Hank acceptable
All over satisfactory and appealing is the character of Hank, the father of the fallen Captain and his brother Tommy. (Probably because he is one of my favourites ever since he played Chuck Yeager in “The Right Stuff”) Visible change takes place in this character, who initially appears bitter and unreasonable, but is capable of change and forgiveness. Depicted as a war-veteran himself, he shows ability to understand and raise a loving family in spite of personal war experience. His bitterness toward his ex-convict son is easily resolved and he develops into an accepting father, albeit with the necessary grumpiness. Sam Shepard plays the part convincingly.
Closing scene – the confession
Finally, the closing scene of the film extinguishes any leftover hope on my personal part as to the authenticity of this story. To please the audience, the true climax of the main actor’s war crime in Afghanistan – the slaughter of his subordinate with a metal rod, while being held at gunpoint – is revealed to his wife, casually, on a park bench, outside the Military hospital. The brother does not confide in his brother, but in his wife. If the film was attempting to convey how difficult life is for a war veteran plagued by remorse and anguish, I think it dismisses how heavy a rehabilitation process is with astounding indifference – almost irresponsibly so.
Conclusion
All told, it becomes clear that Hollywood is the winner, and already is profitting from a war that is not even over. Eventually, veterans will be forgotten in the plentiful Military Hospital Units which litter the American cities, while the true heroes are high profile actors delivering reduced and socially acceptable versions of their predicament to the big screen.
And where does this leave the general public? The general public will continue to be raised and reared to accept watered-down versions of reality so as not to strain the already weak muscle of civil responsibility as is the continuing culture of the west.
ACN