Sundance Journal 2009 Day 5: Oren Moverman’s The Messenger

The Eccles was once again the venue for a world preem of a film that I’d been anticipating for a while now. Transitioning from screenwriter to director, Oren Moverman‘s (and Alessandro Camon’s) screenplay shows a completely different viewpoint of the war – via those whose job it is to announce “your son or daughter has died…and not passed away”. The Messenger is gut-wrenching, honest and even has a funny bone despite the serious subject manner. Moverman works extremely well with the actors, he knows how to hold a scene (there is this great long take that is almost ten minutes long) and knows how frame a sequence – especially the moments where Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster (see pics) need to deliver the bad news. A poster child for a widow’s internal grief and sorrow, Samantha Morton offers a restrained, nuanced, emotionally-charged and moving supporting performance with a dead-on representation of vulnerability in the future that is unknown. 

Steve Buscemi happens to play in one of those scenes and though he might not get a lot of screen time, I swear it will make some of you out there breakdown.

I don’t recall the last time Foster had a leading role, but he is confident in his skill set. The film gets shipped off to the Berlin Film Festival next.