Reign Over Me ( Mike Binder. 2007)

I think this just might be the first film to address 9/11 pertinently. Incidentally, that infamous date designating both time and place in our collective consciousness, is not even mentioned until half way through the film. Binder's decision to sift through the bitter remnants of grief outside of the predictable format of the disaster film, is nothing less than audacious. Of course, this is a fictional story and films like 'United 98' and 'The World Trade Centre' have traded on the kudos of realism (the former by adopting documentary techniques, the latter by purporting to include moments of 'actuality'...in the words of Alicia Silverstone in 'Clueless' - 'WHATEVER!') for their emotional (read manipulative / exploitative or downright stupid) effect. Adam Sandler is truly a revelation in this film; his demeanour, reflected through the shallow focus of the camera, is that of a somnambulist who is only half aware of his surroundings. The pain that he cannot channel is manifest in the lugubrious camera movement and the significance of the heavy rock soundtrack that accompanies him where ever he goes so as to smother his grief. The film's triumph is in its lack of condescension. Too often films dealing with mental illness are content to suggest that all bad things must be exorcised and once this is achieved, everything can return to normal. 'Reign Over Me' eviscerates such platitudes of their trite content; in fact, it is only once Sandler's character has confessed, has admitted he once had a family, that his desperate and somewhat vitriolic rage at the world becomes apparent. However, it is Sandler's performance as someone who is clearly ill but intent on 'finding his own way' which ultimately rids this film of any accusation of being emotionally spurious or manipulatively sentimental. Sandler is so delicately poised between a childlike simplicity and unbearable frustration that his performance throws into poor relief those of actors such as Russell Crowe (whose portrait of a mentally ill mathematician left me wondering if he had a particularly virulent case of the nits). There is no tidy answer to the question of how one can even speak of such sadness and Binder acknowledges this with his inchoate conclusion. This films is serious and it is affecting but I'd also like to add that it has veritable moments of humour courtesy of Sandler's character whose special manner of articulation lacks any kind of politically correct filter.