Review: Brothers

Jim Sheridan’s remake of the Danish film Brodre sees a pair of siblings in love with an angelic ex-cheerleader named Grace (Natalie Portman). On one side we have Sam (Tobey Maguire), Grace’s husband, loving father of their two daughters and patriotic marine who leaves home to serve a tour of Afghanistan. The other suitor is Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), the perennially misunderstood but sensitive ex-convict who takes an interest in his brother’s family once the latter is reported dead. Sam’s miraculous re-appearance however causes unforeseeable tension within the household.

On paper Brothers reads like Pearl Harbor without the explosions and slo-mo: an emotionally fraught love-triangle drama. David Benioff’s script takes time to focus on Grace and Tommy’s mutual infatuation in order to make her husband’s sudden return all the more conflicting, while Sam’s barely concealed demons constitute a lingering threat just waiting to harm those around him (it is also intriguing to watch Maguire and Gyllenhaal play against each other bearing in mind that both actors were once romantically involved with Kirsten Dunst). 

What brings the film down is Sheridan’s choices in directing. Scenes are unexpectedly cut short just before they begin to gain momentum while the second half feels infuriatingly rushed compared to the slow build-up that took place in the film’s earlier stages. Another flaw is Sheridan’s decision to include scenes of Sam’s time as a POW in Afghanistan. The director’s intent is to justify the family man’s descent into madness but what he fails to realise is that the omission of these sequences could have added some much needed suspense and mystery in some of Brothers’ crucial scenes towards the end. 

So while the directing appears to be lacking, the acting department fares better. The ever reliable Portman is candid in her maternal role while Gyllenhaal has enough charisma for us to switch our allegiances once Sam is temporarily out of the picture. Maguire instead is a different matter. At first the baby-faced, croaky-voiced actor does not entirely convince as a gruff US marine and passes off rather as Peter Parker with a buzz-cut. It is in his later scenes as a damaged soul in which he displays impressive ranges of acting, especially when Sam reaches breaking point in a domestic-set sequence. Special mention should also go to child actors Bailee Madisonb and Taylor Geare, who infuse some tender innocence to the fractured family picture.

Nevertheless a few good performances cannot compensate for the overall quality of a film and ultimately Brothers fails to make a lasting impression. It is by no means a disaster nor an instantly forgettable Friday night flick, but one can not help but wonder how much better it could have been with a few tweaks here, a few changes there. Brothers may be superior to his last film, the hopelessly dire Get Rich or Die Tryin’, but Sheridan is still far from matching the dramatic heights of My Left Foot. And he directed that twenty-one years ago.

2/5