Movie Review: Seven Pounds

I got my Netflix movies in the mail this week. I got a couple more discs of How I Met Your Mother and I also got the movie Seven Pounds.

On Friday night, I was watching a Red Sox spring training game...against the NY Mets at the new Citi Field stadium. It was raining all day in NY, so I am surprised the game got played at all. About halfway through the game...the sky opened up and it was raining buckets. It's spring training...and we're in a rain delay. Ugh.

So, I snagged a DVD and started watching while the rain was pouring down on NYC. I decided to watch Seven Pounds since I adore Will Smith and people told me it was a good movie. I had a pretty good idea what the movie was about, but I wasn't sure.

I got about 30 or 40 minutes in...and the rain delay was over and the game was back on. At that point, I was not a fan of the movie. I wasn't even sure I was going to keep watching. Why? Well...in the beginning the movie was relying heavily on non-linear storytelling. It kept flipping back and forth in Will Smith's life between pre and post tragedy while just alluding to the tragedy.

Sometimes I LOVE non-linear storylines and sometimes they bug the bejesus out of me. Since Momento came out, I tend to think people overuse it A LOT in order to make their movie more shocking or artsy, etc. Also, if there is not a specific point to having the audience confused...other than it being a cute movie making trick you can use, then I usually get annoyed with it really quickly. So, at this point...I was not really enjoying being confused about what was going on and why...and not seeing where it was going and why this type of storytelling was important.

So...I took the break...watched the game. Game over. Sox lost. Back to movie. I figured I am far enough in that I should see if it all pays off in the end. Plus, I still really adore Will Smith.

At this point in the movie...it really picked up and had a nice flow. One, they moved away for the most part from the non-lineral storytelling. There were still little spots of it, but not every 2 seconds. Plus, Rosario Dawson's character was really making a presence in the movie. She sold this movie for me. She's spectacular. I was completely sucked into whatever was going on with her.

All in all...when the credits rolled. I thought the movie was great. It's a really interesting and lovely story about pain, loss, regret and acts of kindness and love. I thought Will Smith really brought out so many different things in his character...and Rosario Dawson, as I stated above...is just amazing in the role. I wasn't too impressed with her before. I thought she was pretty and funny in movies like Clerks 2, but didn't see her as a serious actress. I sure do now.

My advice...rent it, watch it. I am glad I didn't ditch it halfway through.