Reign Over Me
By Helen Cuthbertson, Blockbuster.co.uk
Adam Sandler gives an absorbing performance as a man living in a perpetual
state of post-traumatic stress following the death of his wife and family in
the 9/11 attacks on America.
Don Cheadle (Crash, Hotel Rwanda) plays Alan Johnson, a successful dentist
who is beginning to feel somewhat trapped in his marriage to Janeane (
Jada Pinkett Smith). She expects him to be home at her command and to share her interests without once considering his own. She tells him what he likes and
dislikes, giving him no chance to confirm or reject the decisions she makes for both of them. Further problems arise when a beautiful – albeit mentally unstable – female patient (
Saffron Burrows) files a sexual harassment suit after he rejects her advances. The accusation is soon dropped, but by then Johnson has already come to the conclusion that something is missing from his life.
It is at this point when he meets Charlie Fineman (
Adam Sandler), an old roommate from dental college whom he has not seen in many years. Since then, Fineman has lost his wife and three daughters on one of the planes that crashed into the two towers. In the years that have passed, Fineman has been unable to directly face what happened, and therefore has not yet processed the grief attached to it. He is trapped in the limbo between remembering and resolution, regressing back into a child-like state in which he rides around on his scooter or continuously plays computer games. He is also obsessed with music, and plugs in the earphones to his I-pod whenever he feels uncomfortable.
At first, Fineman has no recollection of Johnson, so immersed is he in his own world. However, it’s not long before the pair recapture the friendship of their youth and, while Johnson gets the well-deserved break he has been looking for through the freedom and irresponsibility that Fineman’s life allows (he lives off compensation from the government), Fineman at last finds someone in whom he can begin to confide about the terrible event which altered his life and mind irrevocably.
Sandler previously proved his acting mettle with his superb performance in
2002’s quirky character drama
Punch Drunk Love, for which he gained a
Golden Globe nomination.
Reign Over Me is similarly character-focused, and sees Sandler pushing against the self-imposed boundaries from doing films such as
Mr. Deeds and
Click, to inhabit this emotionally volatile character. The pivotal scene, when Fineman opens up about the details of his family, is genuinely difficult to watch unmoved. It makes the subsequent scenes even harder to bear, as forces come at him from all directions, pushing him towards life in a mental institution.
One thing I was entirely glad about was the lack of easy emotional punches.
Writer and director Mike Binner could have opened the film with a sickly sweet scene from Fineman’s family life before the event, but he didn’t. Instead we are thrown into his life long after he has become reclusive and problematic, making the viewer work hard to like and understand him. I found my sympathy shifting throughout the film, but by the end it was firmly established.
Although Fineman is not autistic, there are elements of Sandler’s portrayal of him which are clearly reminiscent of
Rain Man. At times his movements become shuffling and erratic, his clumsiness with strangers and their reciprocal awkwardness is convincingly executed, while his sudden changes from light to dark are as frightening as they are compelling.
Despite all this, the film is not without comedy and there are many funny moments in the film which offer relief from its serious and difficult subject matter. The cast are excellent, including
Liv Tyler in a small role as the young but informed psychoanalyst working with Fineman’s defence in court. They achieve realistic tension between the characters and make the most of a script that, considering other films made in the aftermath of 9/11, could have been overly cheesy or vaguely political. This film is neither. It is just one interpretation of grief comprehensible only to those who have experienced it, although it never claims to be a definitive description of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress. If anything, it implies that Fineman is an exceptional case.
While regular
Adam Sandler fans will be impressed simply by the actor’s scope, anyone looking for a good drama with attention to character or mental issues should find themselves equally satisfied.