BROTHERS

“BROTHERS” (Tobey McGuire, Jake Gyllenhaal & Natalie Portman)

Like the sisters in “Sunshine Cleaning”, I found myself relating to the brothers in this film because they were reminiscent of my own life. But does that make a film better?
I think it helps, but if the story or the acting go astray or hit a sour note somewhere along the line, the likeability can unravel in a moments notice; & I shouldn’t even use the word likeability because at times, not all of these characters are ‘likeable’ - & that’s what makes a human drama great – these people are ‘real’; they have flaws & we get to see what goes on behind the closed doors of their private lives & wonder what we would do in similar circumstances. But they weren't the type of people who were SO annoying that we didn't care about them (as in "Revolutionary Road")
“Brothers” had a lot of positives going for it as the believability of the story held up while we were expected to buy a plot where one brother falls in love with another’s wife & she falls in love with him despite his being an ex-con & the ‘missing’ brother being a great guy & very much loved by ‘everyone’.
Tobey McGuire & Jake Gyllenhaal play the brothers in question – Sam & Tommy Cahill. Natalie Portman plays wife Grace, caught in the middle & encouraged by her two young daughters, Isabel & Maggie.
Sam is a captain in the marines & his father’s pride & joy. Tommy is a loser drunk just released from prison for robbing a bank... If dad hasn’t disowned Tommy at the beginning of this film, he’s one straw away from the proverbial ‘last’ one.
When Tommy shows up at Sam & Grace’s for dinner, daughter Isabel opens the door & instantly reveals that ‘my mommy doesn’t like you’.
When Sam is given orders to go to Afghanistan, the question is asked, ‘how do you tell the bad guys from the good guys?’ Isabel answers that one with ‘the ones with the beards are the bad guys’ & gives a disapproving look at bearded Uncle Tommy.
Sam’s helicopter is shot down & he is presumed dead. Grace tells Tommy this fact when he’s drunk & he gets angry that she didn’t call him sooner.
At the funeral for the fallen soldier, Tommy sits in the second row (not with the immediate family) & is the only one who doesn’t sing along to the religious hymns. But when he sees his father constantly swigging at a flask, Tommy suddenly becomes protective of his nieces & tries to take the old man’s keys away.
Tommy joins 3 friends to start a remodeling business & they start with Grace’s ugly, inconvenient kitchen. I did get a chuckle out of the fact that Tommy’s ‘crew’ never seemed to do any work, just stood around with bottles of beer in their hands.
His nieces warm up to the ‘new’ Uncle Tommy & Grace begins to see him in a new light as well.
In the meantime we are shown that Sam didn’t die in the crash & get to be privy to the tortures he endures at the hands of his Afghani captors. Since it’s in the trailer, I don’t call that fact a ‘spoiler’.
Sam returns to Grace, but an obviously disturbed man with haunting demons that he will never be able to bury – he eyes Tommy’s remodeling job with suspicious eyes.
One of my favorite scenes occurs during Maggie‘s birthday party, when an angry Isabel yells, “You’re just mad because mommy would rather sleep with Uncle Tommy than you!” at her father, that’s when the fireworks begin. Who wins? Who loses? Who lives? Who dies?
That’s what makes this a great film because these characters are so real – with credit being given to both the writer & the actors – that you want them all to ‘live happily ever after’ but there’s no way that’s going to happen . . . or is it?
And the major reason I loved “Brothers” had nothing to do with the adult actors – they are all fine, in fact, I’d say the 3 leads did a fantastic job – but it’s the two young actresses playing Isabel & Maggie (Bailee Madison & Taylor Geare) that elevate this movie to the plateau of a ‘remarkable achievement’. Average kid actors would ruin a film of this sort because the girls (esp. Bailee) are required to ‘become’ their characters & react in a believable way in a make-believe setting instead of just ‘behave like you normally do & just get your lines out’.
The only time I scoffed was at a sign that was shown on a store which read ‘Save Our Fallen Soldiers’ . . . Huh? Then I thought about it & had to nod in approval because that is just the kind of asinine statement some nimrod would display. I wouldn’t be surprised if they sell a ton of bumper stickers with that phrase on them in all the Jerkwater Burgs across the U.S.A....
Loved this movie, it will be in my Top 10 of the year & the actors should all be given high praise & award nominations.