However, rebirth is not inevitable, nor is it good luck that comes gracefully without paying a price. Paul's wife has been looking forward to artificial insemination for a long time, but was rejected by pual for no reason, and his newly transplanted heart was finally told by the doctor that it might stop beating at any time. Christina picked up psychedelics again because of the sudden shattering of a beautiful family. Jack drove the winning truck, which he believed was a gift from God, with "Jesus is the Savior" painted on his buttocks, and killed Christina's husband and two daughters. His seemingly solid faith was shaky. Begin to curse in a frenzy.
It's a gray and dull movie. It is said that the moment each person lifts his foot and steps into death, he loses 21 grams of weight. Before he died, Paul kept asking, what exactly was filled in the 21 grams, which is equivalent to a stack of coins or a chocolate bar, and how certain and close the distance between life and death was.
If the director tries to give a tentative answer or even just a hint about the answer with this film, I don't think he succeeds at all. Life must go on, but some people, some living lives, will surely be left behind. The question of how vulnerable we might be or how strong we might be is far more elusive than the messy timing of the film itself. If Paul's new heart doesn't reject it, he'll likely continue chewing on his languid life for decades. If Jack was hanged at the jail with a strong hose, he'd be muttering blasphemous curses all the way to hell. If Christina and Paul remember to wear a condom when they go to bed, then Paul's life, or Paul's life who inherited Christina's husband's heart, will not be reborn in her womb. The intricacies of cause and effect make me feel that the search for allegory can only be foolish and futile. What makes me even more unacceptable is that the later rebirth of Paul and Jack came at the cost of 3 innocent lives. It just made me think that everything was a conspiracy between the director and the two male protagonists.
The editing of the film has obvious flaws. After Christina vented hysterically at Paul, she immediately switched to Paul's muzzle and cursed at Jack, as if Paul was a leaking microphone. Toro plays Jack very well. After the accident, he hides at home and waits for his wife to go out to find out the news. The guilt when he got a tattoo on his arm while drunk in a motel couldn't be more realistic.
If Sean Penn's paul stalking Christina around after a heart transplant can be explained by curiosity and gratitude, the director's arrangement with Christina is a bit baffling. Assuming that Christina doesn't happen to be a beauty like Naomi Watts, Paul will probably save his lame humor and disappear after saying "Thank you so much".
Anyway, thanks to the director for letting Paul finally shoot himself in the heart and let his London-accented wife pack up and walk away with a frustrated heart. This further strengthens our conviction that only the lucky ones are reborn, and most of the lives have been or are about to be annihilated to the end of the world. We will never know the upper limit of strength, and the bottom line of vulnerability has always been clear.
In short, this is a movie that makes some people who think they think deeply sigh. As for the other group of people who think they are profound, my suggestion is to not waste time on it at all, but to watch the scene of Miss Rose naked in the Titanic.
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