The title "21 Grams" refers to the supposed weight of a human soul although for all the audience knows it could be a description of the editing style. The jagged storytelling is on crack (perhaps the editor had taken more than 21 grams of it), and the film is told in morsels. Much like the popcorn filmgoers insist on eating in the theater, "21 Grams" comes in bite-size portions. It holds our attention by holding off coherence, thereby testing our will to believe that the film does cohere. But each moment displayed is a scene of such wrenching emotion or revelation (almost any five minutes of the film could serve as a good trailer for the film) that there is an inherent desire to figure out how did things come to this to these characters.

The film meanders about from its table-of-contents-like introduction of milieus to something almost chronological. Past and present are all jumbled up as Sean Penn's character lies on what may be his deathbed. Supposedly the film is from his perspective, but it's much more plausible that the film is from the perspective of an editor, someone interested in what would happen if a bunch of storyboards were placed out of order. Would order come from the chaos? There is a sense of order, but much of it comes from waiting. After the novelty of the editing wears off, there is a slight feeling of annoyance, as if you're being played with. Emotions are given then taken away with little context.

But this state of disarray is much more preferable to the complete sense of order and structure in "Mystic River." In that film, the plodding detective plot could have used a bit of reshuffling. What the editing achieves is a state of cinematic euphoria without emotional heaviness. You feel for the characters, but when tumult is placed next to quiet, your perspective changes and the reflective contrast is immediate rather than ponderous. Eastwood's interesting but ineffective movie throws heaviness at you without anything else to really provide perspective, such as humor, happiness, or pretty much anything offbeat. Sean Penn's performance in "21 Grams" is even subtler than his much-storied turn in "Mystic," and he is given much more range to play with, from invalid to stalker to romantic to killer.

When the pieces of the puzzle finally come together, there is no single Rosebud but a whirlwind of episodes full of life. This may be the first film told completely in jumping flashbacks ("Memento" and "Irreversible" at least were linear if backwards), perhaps the truest vision of what life flashing before your eyes looks like.
-Howard Ho