Delightfully DepressingBy John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee"
"Where seldom is heard a discouraging word . . ."
All the words in The Messenger are discouraging, a film about two soldiers who deliver the news of deaths to next of kin. Ben Foster as Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery and Woody Harrelson as Captain Tony Stone evoke the pathos and terror of the delivery, which no one could ever be prepared for or endure without pain.
Just as Kathryn Bigelow's Hurt Locker reduces the horror of the Iraq War to a manageable microcosm of the horror of IUD's with her study of a bomb squad, so too does director Oren Moverman take that war and crystallize it in the terrifying acts of delivering and receiving the Secretary of the Army's condolences. Never is there a light moment except when the two soldiers get drunk and sing Home on the Range, an ironic song of tranquility amidst chaos.
The dramatic moments of this memorable film are many because the premise should not be taken lightly or romanticized, like battle itself. The message of film and its titular heroes is so desperately depressing that only superior actors such as Foster and Harrelson could make you feel at home on this range.
John DeSando teaches film at Franklin University and co-hosts WCBE 90.5's It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee, which can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com