In Theaters: Brothers

The scenes that take place between Tommy and Grace and her children are the most organic in the film; Gyllenhaal is certainly (and surprisingly) believable as the hapless shithook -- it is his sudden transformation into the happy homemaker that doesn't make much sense. But Jim Sheridan has a way with family (and makeshift family) scenes that tends to pick up a lot of motivational slack; in addition, he has again cast two astoundingly adept children to portray Grace's daughters Isabelle (Bailee Madison) and Maggie (Taylor Geare), who have a burgeoning sibling rivalry of their own at work.

It is Madison, in particular, who grounds otherwise strictly formulaic scenes with sweetness, heart, and finally, ferocity. Held for months (I assume, the film doesn't specify), Sam has guided his fellow prisoner through the psychological assault of captivity, but they ultimately crack, and only Sam returns, carrying the requisite unspeakable secret. Part of the burden of what Sam did over there is a free-ranging obsession with the concept of betrayal; back at home (and the family adjusts ridiculously well to his resurrection -- another convenient gloss) it manifests in Sam's certainty that Grace has betrayed him with Tommy.

Tweaked, ghostly, and sucked in by starvation at every bone, Sam is not the husband or father he was: "When's Uncle Tommy coming over?" Isabelle asks, after her dad totally harshes on her six-year-old sister's idea of dinner table banter. I was wondering the same thing: not only is he a giant drag, his return, and the film's pivot into PTSD melodrama, has preempted the one element that was actually working. There is some solace -- and real, messy emotion -- however, in the showdown not between Tommy and Grace or Tommy and Sam (blah and double blah) but Sam and Isabelle, which takes places at yet another groaning dinner table. The deficiencies in Maguire's studied stoicism and carved, contained anguish are thrown into relief by Madison's brimming and then unstoppable rage over her father's repressive, frightening new incarnation; he's out-acted by a nine-year-old and it's totally worth it.

When the boot finally drops, none of the emotional or narrative groundwork is in place for Sam's crack-up and Tommy's whatever-it-is to arrive at some satisfying resting place. The relationship -- relatively chaste but full of mutual respect and loaded admiration -- that develops between Tommy and Grace is left completely unresolved, as though familial bonds conquer all, despite damning evidence (cf. their father) to the contrary. Sheridan seems to recognize the dead end that all of his various narrative paths point to, wrapping up the film with a quick confession and a vague and anomalous bit of voice over about whether soldiers who live to tell can actually learn to live again. Look elsewhere, is the film's apparent parting thought, for the answer to that one.

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