The Jacket (2005)
The Jacket was part of a conscious attempt by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney (in their capacity as producers) to bring independent filmmakers into the mainstream. In this instance at least it was a failure: this collision of two cinematic traditions bemused critics and audiences alike. It is a film that confounds expectations in much the same way as The Butterfly Effect (2004) did.
During the first Gulf War Sergeant Jack Starks (Adrien Brody) is shot in the head by an Iraqi child. At first the field surgeons believe he is dead until a blink saves him from a body bag. Hastily discharged he finds himself aimlessly drifting through the winter snow of Vermont. Picked up by a hitchhiker he is witness to the murder of a cop. Injured and psychologically traumatised he is an easy scapegoat for the authorities and is soon convicted of the murder and detained in a secure mental institute. All this takes place in compressed opening of just twelve minutes before the story proper plays out.
Inside the institute Starks is caught in the punitive regime of Dr. Thomas Becker (Kris Kristofferson). Becker views Starks as a criminal who has got off lightly and needs to be punished as much as cured. The principle instrument of this punishment is the titular jacket: Starks is straitjacketed, drugged and entombed in a mortuary locker. And this is where the film takes a turn for the strange.
Seemingly Starks is catapulted fifteen years into the future (which is to say the present day for us.) Here he encounters and befriends Jackie Price (Keira Knightley), a waitress who he soon realises he first met immediately prior to the murder he was framed for when she was still a child. This makes the growing sexual element of their relationship slightly problematic, although the film shies away from addressing this. The massive commercial success of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller’s Wife showed that there was a public appetite for inter-generational inter-temporal love stories but even so it niggles.
So what is going on here? Is Starks simply insane? It is hard not to think of Jacob’s Ladder (1990), a film that ultimately revealed itself to be an extended episode in purgatory. There is no such clear cut answer in The Jacket but Stark’s salvation through sacrifice hint at the spiritual and the sublime. This is reinforced by a transcendent final scene that seems to turn the film outwards to the viewer, to directly ask the audience to reassess their own priorities.
Essentially this is an offbeat art house film dressed up in the high production values that a more mainstream budget can provide. This budget also allows for a high profile cast. Brody, with his hangdog expression and intense, scrawny physicality, is perfect cast as Starks and he is ably supported by the other actors (in particular Laura Marano as the young Jackie deserves a nod.) The exception is Kristofferson, whose impassive - almost paralysed - features never really convey the internal conflict he is supposed to feel.
During the first Gulf War Sergeant Jack Starks (Adrien Brody) is shot in the head by an Iraqi child. At first the field surgeons believe he is dead until a blink saves him from a body bag. Hastily discharged he finds himself aimlessly drifting through the winter snow of Vermont. Picked up by a hitchhiker he is witness to the murder of a cop. Injured and psychologically traumatised he is an easy scapegoat for the authorities and is soon convicted of the murder and detained in a secure mental institute. All this takes place in compressed opening of just twelve minutes before the story proper plays out.
Inside the institute Starks is caught in the punitive regime of Dr. Thomas Becker (Kris Kristofferson). Becker views Starks as a criminal who has got off lightly and needs to be punished as much as cured. The principle instrument of this punishment is the titular jacket: Starks is straitjacketed, drugged and entombed in a mortuary locker. And this is where the film takes a turn for the strange.
Seemingly Starks is catapulted fifteen years into the future (which is to say the present day for us.) Here he encounters and befriends Jackie Price (Keira Knightley), a waitress who he soon realises he first met immediately prior to the murder he was framed for when she was still a child. This makes the growing sexual element of their relationship slightly problematic, although the film shies away from addressing this. The massive commercial success of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller’s Wife showed that there was a public appetite for inter-generational inter-temporal love stories but even so it niggles.
So what is going on here? Is Starks simply insane? It is hard not to think of Jacob’s Ladder (1990), a film that ultimately revealed itself to be an extended episode in purgatory. There is no such clear cut answer in The Jacket but Stark’s salvation through sacrifice hint at the spiritual and the sublime. This is reinforced by a transcendent final scene that seems to turn the film outwards to the viewer, to directly ask the audience to reassess their own priorities.
Essentially this is an offbeat art house film dressed up in the high production values that a more mainstream budget can provide. This budget also allows for a high profile cast. Brody, with his hangdog expression and intense, scrawny physicality, is perfect cast as Starks and he is ably supported by the other actors (in particular Laura Marano as the young Jackie deserves a nod.) The exception is Kristofferson, whose impassive - almost paralysed - features never really convey the internal conflict he is supposed to feel.