Oscilloscope Stands at The Messenger’s Doorstep

I was beginning to think that Oren Moverman‘s emotionally charged directorial debut was going to be a victim of not indifference, but the distributors being afraid of the movie-going public’s lack of interest for films somehow related to the Iraq war. I had speculated on the reasons why it didn’t get picked up (read here), but after a full six months from its preem at Sundance and after winning the prize for Best Screenplay in Berlin, Oscilloscope Laboratories have opened up their home to The Messenger setting it for a release sometime in November.

In a year that includes perhaps the best fictionalized representation of madness found in Iraq in Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, Moverman’s The Messenger is perhaps closer to Jim Sheridan’s December-set tale of a mangled triangle of victims in Brothers. On paper this was a solid piece, but on film, the transfer is even more absorbing. The Dardenne-like aesthetic offers a generous dose of realism and one of the film’s strengths are Moverman’s long takes where the camera lingers around longer than expected. As I mentioned here, the lead characters and the supporter players are solid – you can look forward to the excellent cameo perf from Steve Buscemi. You can read the interview I had with Oren back at Sundance, where he mentions how he perfected the tone. 

Co-written by Alessandro Camon and Moverman, this follows two officers Foster stars as Will Montgomery, a U.S. Army officer who has just returned home from a tour in Iraq and is assigned to the Army’s Casualty Notification service. Partnered with fellow officer Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) to bear the bad news to the loved ones of fallen soldiers, Will faces the challenge of completing his mission while seeking to find comfort and healing back on the home front. When he finds himself drawn to Olivia (Samantha Morton), to whom he has just delivered the news of her husband’s death, Will’s emotional detachment begins to dissolve and the film reveals itself as a surprising, humorous, moving and very human portrait of grief, friendship and survival.