Usually when you think of a valley you imagine somewhere lush and green with pleasant blue skies – sorta like Happy Valley from ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’.
Paul Haggis’s Valley of Elah definitely doesn’t fit that description. For starters, it’s far from green, it’s braver than King David in his legendary battle with Goliath (see the movie for more on that one) and it’s not at all pleasant – this is as dark as the sky right before a thunderstorm.
A film that won’t be screening in the White House theatrette anytime soon, the affecting drama investigates the repercussions of war – and how the war overseas isn’t nearly as tough as the battleground back home. Yes, you’ve seen movies about the subject before, but not done this well.
A hard-nosed retired army sergeant (Tommy Lee Jones) is informed that his son, a young soldier who has just returned from duty in Iraq, has gone AWOL. Soon after arriving in the town surrounding the base, Dad is informed that a body – or the remains of one – has been found in the scrub by the side of the road. Now, with the help of a local female copper (Charlize Theron) who is usually handed the bottom of the barrel assignments, the distraught but tough-as-nails father searches for the truth about his son.
Featuring an excellent cast headed by the fantastic Jones (what a year it’s been for him – this and No Country for Old Men), Charlize Theron, Susan Sarandon (as the devastated mother) and Jason Patric (as a lieutenant who “obviously doesn’t have children” ), In The Valley of Elah is top-of-the-range filmmaking, almost without flaw. A perfect film should have a solid story, terrific characters and a message that stays with you for days – this has all that. You’ll be compelled, you’ll be rattled, and you’ll be rewarded.
Even better than 2007’s finest hour in cinema No Country for Old Men, Tommy Lee Jones and crew continue to reaffirm our belief that the good-story-first, bells-and-whistles-later movies are still out there – you just have to search a little harder to find them. You must take a stroll around this Valley.