The Clumsy Din of Chance

3burials.jpgThe only connection that I could quickly find between screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga and novelist Paul Auster is that they had a public “conversation” earlier this year. (The promised subjects suggest at best a superficial relationship: “the art of filmmaking, writing, and – yes – Hollywood.” How pedestrian.) This is curious to me, because Arriaga’s script for the Tommy Lee Jones-directed The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is classic Auster.

Grief Without Weight

21 Grams is a beautifully made formal exercise – a story chopped up into so many bits that the audience spends almost all of its energy putting the pieces together. But the structure is so overpowering that it’s difficult to evaluate the content; one viewing suggests the narrative is too under-developed to survive scrutiny or a linear telling.