New Movie Review: In the Valley of Elah

Paul Haggis, writer-director of the best picture winning Crash, goes for an even higher political mark with his latest film, In the Valley of Elah, and he hits his target right on the money. The film revolves around a father, played with gravity and sincerity by Tommy Lee Jones, and his search for answers in the death of his son. The movie follows the basic guidelines for a procedural film (see: All the President's Men or this year's Zodiac) but dares to go beyond a simple exploration of beurocracy or of systems. Instead, Haggis' film becomes an intense character study in the guise of a procedural.

It would seem that Tommy Lee Jones is in the midst of a career resurgence after turning in some fine work in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and the upcoming No Country for Old Men. His brilliantly understated performance anchors a film that teeters on sentimentality, as Haggis' films so often do, but Jones holds strong at the centre and keeps the focus of the story where it belongs: on the criminal investigation. Jones' choice to not play up his feelings allows the audience to draw its own conclusions, and we still come out feeling how Haggis would have wanted us to feel anyway.

Charlize Theron plays a female detective dealing with sexism in the workplace in a minor subplot that is never really fleshed out, but that is to the benefit of the film. She is strong-willed and intense but with just enough heart showing through that we believe she truly wants to help this man. Susan Sarandon is devastating in the few scenes that she has, and with almost no words at all, she conveys all of the hurt and loss that her character experiences. The rest of the ensemble cast play most mostly army and police personnel, and all bring their A-game. However, the show really belongs to Jones' grieving but determined father.

He is the beating heart at the core of this film. We sympathize with him and can understand every move he makes. Haggis' writing, while sometimes a little on the head, is wonderfully restrained here, and he simply allows the facts of the case to carry the story forward. The writing, coupled with Tommy Lee Jones' performance, do well to keep the film grounded just left of centre, when it very easily could have gone off on an overtly leftist political bent. The great success of the film is that it alienates no one but is still able to convey a very important message about the condition in which our world finds itself.

See it?

Enthusiastically, yes.