MOVIE REVIEW: 7 POUNDS

7 POUNDS

Five of Seven Cows

Will Smith’s movie, 7 Pounds, has been panned by many critics as being overly melodramatic. Hmmm. Smith portrays a man seeking redemption after having caused the death of his wife and six others in an auto accident. On his journey to redemption he becomes involved with a woman dying of a congenital heart defect. What were the critics expecting? A musical?

Yes, 7 Pounds is melodramatic, which I guess is just another way of saying that it’s a serious drama meant for adults. It also features a performance that may well be Oscar worthy, and I’m not talking about Will Smith. 

Rosario Dawson gives a dramatic portrayal of a dying woman, Emily Posa, that is heart-rending, sweet, and thoroughly believable. It’s been a long time since I’ve so completely bought into a character. Her performance is so subtle, so true, that I began to feel like a voyeur. This is my new benchmark for dramatic acting: She was that good.

Smith was good, too, though we’ve seen him do this before so I’m no longer surprised by his depth and range as an actor. In films such as The Pursuit of Happiness and I Am Legend, Smith has shown he can nail the broken-man-with-the-good-heart bit, and his portrayal of Ben Thomas is much like those others. 7 Pounds was in fact directed by Gabriele Muccino, who also directed The Pursuit of Happiness, so perhaps it’s no surprise that it covers much of the same emotional territory.

Making liberal use of flashbacks and seemingly disconnected back-story, 7 Pounds tries hard to obscure the arc of the story. We know Smith’s character, Ben Thomas, was once a happy man. We know he’s not now. We know some people died, and he’s now an emotional cripple seeking redemption by helping strangers. It’s not hard to piece together, but it was nice of them to try. The ending is implausible and contrived, but that’s easily forgiven given how good the rest is.  Besides, the heart of this story is not in the plot; it’s in the performances.

7 Pounds is not a feel-good Christmas movie. The kiddies will doze, and if they don’t they’ll ask questions you’d rather not have to answer. But if you want to see how acting is done, then Rosario Dawson has a gift for you. I give 7 Pounds five emotionally overwrought cows.