Out of Frame: The Messenger

Similarly, when Stone declares that he thinks that the funeral of every dead soldier should be televised, and that the President should regularly eulogize at them, it's not that he wants people to feel the costs of war, or for the President to feel more empathy for what he's sending these young men and women to do. Stone just thinks people should get used to the idea that war equals death. After all, it would make his job a little easier if people weren't so shocked by the news he brings.

Harrelson delivers what is quite possibly the finest performance of his career, largely because Moverman allows him to work the dramatic chops he has displayed sporadically throughout his career, while still letting him to do what he does best, be funny. What comedy there is — mostly in Stone's tendency to blow off steam inappropriately while off-duty — is understated and never clashes with the solemnity that dominates the movie.

As good as Harrelson is, the movie belongs to Foster, an actor of frightening intensity who has sadly only occasionally been given the chance to show just how good he is. Moverman gives him the star turn here, and he quietly dazzles. Foster's beautiful performance througout lies deep in his eyes and in the subtle nervous mannerisms that threaten to crack his façade.

Montgomery is a model soldier always looking for a challenge: he insists that he take the lead on only the second notification the two men go on together, declaring that when he's given an assignment, he does it. But his on-duty stoicism masks a man dealing — badly — with intense losses of his own. When he delivers news of a soldier's death to a new widow (Samantha Morton), he recognizes in her calm and gracious response the same mask he wears every day.

The uncomfortable relationship these two are drawn into, which is less a romance than two broken people cautiously trying to find a place where it's safe to let their guard down, is yet another in a long list of examples of just how easily The Messenger could have gone wrong, yet it never does. A Hollywood-ized version of this movie might have thrown the two into a full-blown affair, but Moverman isn't interested in dressing things up for unlikely but dramatic effects.

The Messenger drives home the point that war is a losing proposition, which has nothing to do with who is victorious on the battlefield. They're the everyday losses of life, of family, of friends. The film is a moving and human reflection on the costs of war, and a deeply respectful look at the work done by the rank and file of the armed forces, both overseas and at home. It isn't a political film, and it isn't even necessarily an anti-war film. It's just about the legacy that war leaves behind, for those that fight it, and those who love them. Because even in victory, loss is still inevitable.

The Messenger opens today at E Street and Bethesda Row.
View the trailer.