Brothers

Based on the 2004 Danish film of the same name, Brothers follows mother-of-two Grace Cahill (Natalie Portman) as she copes with the apparent war-related death of her husband (Tobey Maguire’s Sam) by befriending his ne’er-do-well brother (Jake Gyllenhaal’s Tommy) – with problems ensuing as Sam, having been held captive in Afghanistan for several months, eventually returns home and becomes increasingly convinced that Grace and Sam had an affair during his absence. Brothers, directed by Jim Sheridan and written by David Benioff, primarily comes off as a watchable yet consistently lackluster drama that suffers from a pervasive lack of authenticity, which effectively (and ultimately) ensures that the movie is rarely able to pack the sort of emotional punch that Sheridan is clearly striving for. The less-than-enthralling atmosphere is perpetuated by the almost uniformly underwhelming performances, as the three stars are never entirely able to wholeheartedly slip into the skin of their respective characters – with Portman’s ongoing efforts at becoming this wary housewife generally falling flat (although, to be fair, the actress does seem awfully young to be playing someone with a 10-year-old daughter). And while the movie features a few admittedly striking sequences (eg a tense family dinner that escalates into violence), Brothers is simply unable to rise above its aggressively bland sensibilities to become anything more than a slightly above-average movie-of-the-week.

**1/2 out of ****