Movie Review: Brothers (2009, Directed by Jim Sheridan)

What a pleasant surprise was Jim Sheridan’s Brothers. The director who brought us the minor immigration masterpiece In America a few years ago now gives us a tale worthy of the great films of the past like The Best Years of our Lives that document the woes of veterans making the difficult transition to civilian life. Brothers joins The Hurt Locker as one of the few successful military-oriented films made in the shadow of 9/11 and the subsequent events.

Brothers tells the simple tale of Captain Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire), thought to be dead in Afghanistan. When it is found that Cahill is in fact not dead, but has been captured by the Taliban, the young soldier must contend with the changes that have occurred on the civilian front. Maguire’s alcoholic brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) has formed a complicated bond with Maguire’s wife (Natalie Portman). Maguire must contend with not only the chilling memory of the moral compromises he had to make to escape the Taliban, but also the complex family dynamics that he finds upon his return to the homeland.

I cannot lay enough superlatives on the bold performances of Maguire, Gyllenhaal, and Portman. None of these three actors have proved themselves particularly versatile or subtle in the past. There is nothing in their filmographies to prepare me for the astonishing emotional heights they traverse in Sheridan’s movie. Even more impressive than the intense melodrama seen in the film’s trailer are the moments of subtle emotional truth. In fact, Brothers is overall a rather quiet film. We, the audience, witness quiet times in which characters express so much to one another with glances and knowing nods.

Brothers, much like The Hurt Locker, is powerful because it focuses not on the political complexities of battle, but rather the emotional and psychological effects war has on its participants. We see how, indeed, war can and does turn brother against brother.