HOLLYWOOD HUES
Go for it

Suspense and romance are deftly handled in Italian director Gabriele Mucino’s
Seven Pounds, writes Ervell E. Menezes

WHAT would you say of a once-successful aerospace engineer and graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who becomes a tax collector. That this Internal Revenue System (IRS) man, who has come sliding down the social ladder, gets sadistic pleasure in nabbing tax defaulters? That’s what one feels when we initially run into Ben Thomas (Will Smith) and he draws up a list of seven ordinary folks in Seven Pounds.

But in a short while we realise that these folks have major problems and he wants to help them. There’s a blind concert pianist Ezra Turner (Woody Harrelson), a Latino woman with two cute kids, Connie Tepos (Elpida Carello) who is being beaten black and blue by her boyfriend, a beautiful young woman Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson) with a congenital heart and is on borrowed time and others. How they react to his intrusive questions is not surprising. Some are tolerant, others blatantly rude. Why is Ben doing this?

Is there something in the past that is worrying him? Is he trying to find redemption through what later turns into a Good Samaritan? But while he is in the process of changing their lives, it is he who is about to be dramatically changed when he loses his heart to Emily. At first, reluctant to get involved, he is magically drawn to her and the chemistry of this liaison is most sensitively handled.

Italian director Gabriele Mucino takes up from where he left of in The Pursuit of Happyness and the film is very well crafted. In this, he is ably assisted by scriptwriter Grant Nieporte. Together they infuse enough doses of suspense and weave their way around the seven characters and it calls for slick editing. Ben’s lawyer friend Dan (Barry Pepper) and younger brother (Michael Ealy) add to the plethora of neatly fleshed cameos.

For Will Smith, it is a different kind of role. Not the smart Alec, sassy guy he is wont to play. It is more enigmatic and vulnerable and thanks to his versatility, he is quite comfortable in it. It is a feel-good film. So far, so good. But in the last quarter the dramatic twists and turns are exaggerated and it is this nearly fairy tale turn that works against the narrative, especially when we look at it in retrospect. But the good-while-it-lasts aspect makes the dream world last quarter tolerable, or rather forgiveable. Will Smith is absolutely convincing in this unusual role and he is brilliantly supported by Rasario Dawson in a beautifully etched portrayal bereft of the mushiness and melodrama that generally goes with such parts. Woody Harrelson as the blind pianist is good but keeps looking different in each new film of his and the matronly Elpida Carilla has come a long way since her comely Mexican refugee woman she played in that early 1980s classic The Border. Go for it, Seven Pounds is still worth watching.

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