One guy in this film says the pharma companies are bad as the arms traders, but aside from this murder – which I really don’t buy – they don’t offer much evidence for that. The sins of pharma are probably more neglect of the poor world than active harm being caused there – something Heckler and Koch or IMI really cannot claim.

People in the room actually laughed out loud at the cheesiness of the heckler to bedmate progression between Weisz and Fiennes. I also did not find her response to the Iraq war to be a particular clever one, or one suiting her supposed character. It reminded me of the Prime Minister’s speech at the end of Love Actually, which sounded like the wild fantasy of some anti-American British leftist, rather than something a politician would ever actually say. I also felt as though the scene and dynamic were inspired to some extent by the classroom interchange between Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connoly in A Beautiful Mind. There was a similar dynamic of spirited young female student and relatively wooden older professo. and subsequently husband.

As for Weisz’s character not achieving her goals because of emotion, she actually seems to do a pretty good job, doesn’t she? With minimal support she writes a report damaging enough to lead to all the rest of what happens. Her failure, as I recall, was the result of a not-terribly-implausible betrayal, followed by a less plausible and decidedly brutal corporate response.

Also I felt there was a (I’m sorry but I watched this right after my Women in Literature final) cheesy gender subtext going on. Rachel Weisz is the principled saint (as women are so often portrayed) whose emotions and lack of control just keep her from acheiving her goals…I mean she is supposed to be an Amnesty Reporter and she starts crying in the middle of a press conference? come on! Do you think Alison Forges of Human Rights Watch just breaks down because she can’t handle a confrontation with those big, scary, smart men? I don’t think so.

Finally, have you ever noticed that when, in film (sometimes literature too), a man’s wife gets killed, they throw in a rape for good measure? (Happened in Gladiator, that film that went backwards I forget the name of, etc). This means he is EXTRA justified in seeking revenge on the baddies. But if the woman belonging to the man lives, she never gets raped, she always just manages to escape or be rescued. That way she isn’t ‘damaged goods’ for the man to have to deal with.

Maybe if we keep pretending the world works that way, men will NEVER have to confront global rape as a problem they are connected to? Because in Hollywood, every time it happens to a woman *belonging* to a man she just disappears, for his convenience-and all of ours.

Weisz was magnificent and deserved the Oscar.

-Sean

I tend to read their reviews of things after I see them, in order to make sure they are still being fairly intelligent.