Seven Pounds
After seeing Seven Pounds, I have a bit of a bone to pick with some of my fellow critics and moviegoers. I normally don’t occupy review space with ruminations about other criticisms or about how people experience art in our modern, desperately contemptuous age. But after experiencing Gabriele Muccino’s film and reading through the surprising amount of negative press, I felt I had to finally endeavour out of my normal “zone” and offer a few words.
Critic aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes has Seven Pounds ranked at 27% on the Tomatometer. The “consensus” is the following: “Grim and morose, Seven Pounds is also undone by an illogical plot.” When I see such a consensus (Roger Ebert, incidentally, liked the film), I cannot help but wonder why we go to the movies in the first place. I cannot help but wonder how other movies, now long deemed classics, would be treated by today’s critics and audiences. Is it possible that Casablanca would be overlooked and shunned for being “illogical?” Or Hitchcock’s great works would be despised for being “manipulative?”
Indeed, Hitch was a master of manipulation. He knew why audiences went to the movies. He knew what audiences wanted, how to play tricks, how to stage-manage emotions and fears. Yet today’s critics and audiences chastise a motion picture for “manipulating” or for “coercing responses” out of us. Today’s audiences like to “figure out the ending” with arms crossed and a “you can’t fool me” expression on their popcorn-munching faces. Whatever happened to the process of merely engaging in art? What happened to learning the new rules of cinema and the new logic of film?
2008 has been a great year for movies. Films have challenged me, made me laugh, made me cry, made me shiver, and made me think. There have also been movies that have been flat-out unpleasant, films that have failed in their mission to entertain, inform, amuse, delight, and draw out emotions. Is it not the destiny of art to draw out emotion, to provoke, and to control? What good is a song if it can’t make you sense anything? Or a piece of poetry? Or a picture?
Seven Pounds is not a perfect motion picture. It is not amongst my top films of the year, but it deserves to be seen and experienced if only for the distinctiveness it brings to the screen. Here is a movie that maintains an air of inscrutability amongst the resolute distinctions of the characters. Here is a movie that takes the “most bankable star” of our time, strips him down, and challenges us with the visualization of a broken man crushed by remorse and burdened with a purpose that is utterly, surely goddamn unreasonable.
Will Smith stars as Ben Thomas. We meet Ben as he, to paraphrase Mr. Ebert, “behaves precisely.” He is an IRS agent and he is certainly behaving peculiarly. We see him cuff somebody in a nursing home for mistreating an elderly woman. We see him abuse a blind man (Woody Harrelson) over the telephone with unnecessary nastiness. We see him follow and hang around a young woman (Rosario Dawson) with a heart condition and a rare blood type. Why?
Muccino, who also directed Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness (a film that I didn’t like at all), draws us in with various puzzle pieces. Some of the pieces interlock, others do not. All we are able to ascertain pragmatically is that Ben Thomas has things going according to an arrangement that only he is aware of. He looks for other people he deems to be commendable, too, ascertaining whether or not to mete out his “gifts” to these individuals. Again, we’re saddled with the question of why.
When the story does come together towards the end of the film, it is stunning and astounding. There are clues, without doubt, and some may crow about figuring it all out before the last moments. But others, those who know that it is better to enjoy and muse in the dimness, will find themselves captivated by this eccentric story of guilt, regret, and a plan that only Ben knows about because only he needs to know about it.
I won’t explain Seven Pounds any further. The performances are superb, the relationship granted between Smith’s Thomas and Rosario Dawson’s character is smart and well-drawn, and the conclusion to Ben’s plan is apposite. As you read other reviews of this movie, ask yourself what the critic was looking for in Seven Pounds. Ask yourself if the pessimistic reviews aren’t merely rancorous cogitations of “being had” or of being manipulated by a skilful director honing his craft and a wonderful cast pouring their souls into a distinctive, uncertain project.
Some will enjoy Seven Pounds and, if the rating on IMBD.com is any indication, it seems that audiences are finding more in it than case-hardened critics. That is heartening in many ways. There are reasons to be critical of this movie, certainly, and it is not perfect. But it is well-crafted, tender, and surprising. I was “manipulated” by this story, “taken,” by the cast,” and “had” by Seven Pounds. And if you ask me, I’m pretty damn pleased about it.
Trailer:
