Whenever Hollywood remakes an acclaimed foreign film, there’s an inevitable backlash of people who start asking “Why? What’s the point in remaking something that doesn’t need improving?”
The answer is fairly obvious: where there’s a good story left untold to the masses, there’s big money to be made. That answer, however, doesn’t as readily apply to Jim Sheridan’s (In America, The Boxer) remake of the 2004 Danish film Brødre [Brothers]. Sure, it replaces everything foreign with an all-American cast and all-American setting, conforming to the presumption that Western audiences can’t relate with anyone who speaks in subtitles. But unlike most remakes, it doesn’t feel as though it exists just to make money. It wouldn’t be such a slow-burning urban drama if that were the case. Instead, it seems genuinely interested in bringing the slight but captivating story, which explores the emotional effects of war on a soldier and his family, to a wider audience.
As the title suggests, the film revolves around the relationship between two brothers; Capt. Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire), a US marine, and Tommy Cahill (Jake Gyllenhaal), his disruptive and unmotivated younger brother recently released from prison. Upon being re-deployed back in Afghanistan, Sam must leave his wife, Grace (Natalie Portman), and two young daughters, Isabelle and Maggie (Bailee Madison, Taylor Grace Geare), behind. When Sam’s helicopter crashes and he is presumed dead, Grace and Tommy start to form a close bond as a result of their loss, unaware that Sam actually survived the crash to become a prisoner of war. Upon his eventual return home, a jaded Sam grows suspicious of his wife and brother, believing they had an affair in his absence.
While it sounds overly melodramatic on paper, Sheridan does well to keep the drama firmly grounded by not overdosing on theatrics, allowing David Benioff’s naturally flowing screenplay to do all the talking. The film has a few issues with pacing, particularly during the first 40 minutes or so where the film cross-cuts between Sam being held captive in a Taliban concentration camp – a subplot that doesn’t quite leave an impact on the audience as profound as it should — and Grace and Tommy moving on with their lives back home. Where the film truly captivates is during the scenes in which the three leads share the screen, namely the family dinners held before and after Sam’s deployment. The tension felt between the characters during these well staged scenes is almost tangible.
It’s a testament to Maguire’s thoughtful, layered performance that we care for his tormented character as much as we do, especially since he is given very little time in the opening act to establish his character before being deployed in Afghanistan. During his time offshore, we warm up to Gyllenhaal as the rehabilitating Tommy, who for the first time in his life, starts to take on domestic responsibilities. At news of Sam’s death, he becomes a father figure to his nieces Isabelle and Maggie, two crucial roles that show the extent of which children bear the burden of a dysfunctional family. Both are brilliantly portrayed by child actors Bailee Madison and Taylor Grace Geare.
The real lynchpin here, however, is Natalie Portman’s turn as Grace; with little dialogue to speak off, it’s simply remarkable how credibly she manages to shift from one emotion to the next, which as you can imagine in her character’s situation, happens quite often. While her onscreen chemistry with Gyllenhaal isn’t quite as strong as the story requires, this is more of a fault in the film’s multi-protagonist structure that sees it juggle the three different relationships of the triangle within a relatively short amount of time. To Sheridan’s credit, the absence of a single lead character cleverly places the audience in the same dilemma as Grace; who do we side with, Sam or Tommy?
It all boils down to a seriously never-wrecking, albeit abrupt and slightly overblown, climax that leaves you satisfied and surprisingly hopeful. While Brothers mightn’t have been given a second glance during the recent awards season, don’t let that fool you; remakes this good are one in a million.
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