This triptych of psychological affliction is completed by the protean Del Toro. His potency as an actor is deepened because in addition to his emotional gifts he is a performer of great physical dignity; he loses it in 21 Grams, and it's a sure sign of the control Del Toro has that it can be seen slipping away.
The film is also full of fine supporting performances. Each of the characters' wrecked lives takes on fuller shape from the loved ones beaten down by neglect. Charlotte Gainsbourg plays Paul's wife, and her unusually striking face -- beautiful from one angle, odd from another -- is so completely expressive that it does much of the work for her. As Jack's wife, Melissa Leo makes her relationship to a man given to tremendous and simultaneous hostility and remorse so real it's absorbing and painful to watch.
The intelligence of completing the picture by displaying the suffering through the eyes of the leads' loved ones makes 21 Grams an extraordinarily
satisfying vision.
The title refers to the amount of mass said to escape the body at the moment of death -- the supposed weight of the soul. But the movie also evokes the majestic heartbreak of the Willie Nelson song Three Days, a misery compounded by the sweetness of K. D. Lang's cover: "Three days, filled with tears and sorrow -- yesterday, today and tomorrow."
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