In the Valley of Elah

With In the Valley of Elah, Paul Haggis delivers a simmering melodrama that demonstrates a level of quiet intensity and perfectly restrained writing that many protested were lacking from his Oscar winning upset film, Crash. It’s likely to go less noticed, probably for that reason. It’s not a broadly painted crisis film with “oh, wow” moments of overlapping, connect the dots fun. It’s a disparate, grisly film of very raw emotion captured in note-perfect detail. There are certainly bigger picture social implications here, but they exist beyond the film, in conclusions made from its powerful story not lessons the film itself seems determined to teach.

Tommy Lee Jones gives yet another outstanding performance here as Hank Deerfield, the deeply unnerved yet eternally gruff father of an AWOL soldier who went missing sometime soon after returning from Iraq. Being a former military police officer, Deerfield takes it upon himself to investigate his son’s mysterious disappearance on his own, taking quite quickly outsmarting the surprisingly secretive military presence on the case and coercing a police detective (Charlize Theron as Det. Emily Sanders) to taking the case on as a civilian investigation. Living out of hotels, separate from his grieving wife back home (Susan Sarandon), Hank become something of a renegade loner haunted by memories of his son and aggressively pursuing his whereabouts.

The greatest strength to this film, and the clear product of Haggis and Jones’ superb collaboration, is the murky psychological explorations of Hank, his motives, and his emotional limits. He’s stoic, but endlessly captivating with rage and sadness just beneath the surface. It’s a riveting character study, a compelling mystery, and a timely story about the consequences of war on the psyches of its soldiers and the nation they represent.

Grade: A