Review - The Messenger

Not a masterwork but pretty good, The Messenger tells the story of two messengers of the Army's Casualty Notification Service (CNS) – Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) and Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson). CNS officers (acronyms are a shorthand for military perspective in The Messenger) are assigned to tell the news of a soldier's death to the soldier's next of kin (NOK). Montgomery has just returned from a combat tour and was wounded in battle. He is assigned to work with the more experienced Stone. Though somewhat episodic, the majority of The Messenger concerns the relationship between Montgomery and Stone.

Structurally, the narrative of Montgomery and Stone frames a series of smaller narratives. Every time Montgomery or Stone tells a family member a soldier has died, that telling is a small narrative. Each of those smaller narratives is, in a way, contained within the larger narrative of Montgomery and Stone. As a tactic, this narratives within narrative structure allows The Messenger to portray loss of massive scope – news of death comes to many families in many ways, with the narrative of Montgomery and Stone holding everything together. The larger narrative of Montgomery and Stone is engaging, fairly smart, semi-conventional, and extraordinarily well acted. However, the smaller narratives are more forceful. Knowing this, director Oren Moverman allows these smaller narratives to invade the narrative of Montgomery and Stone, and, eventually, the narratives of the wars themselves. About halfway through the movie, while Stone is watching T.V., a single line reminds us that CNS is nationwide: “I think they oughta put every funeral on T.V.” says Stone. But this is not a political movie – this is a movie about loss.

It's also a strangely meta-filmic movie. Montgomery's and Stone's telling of killings is rigidly scripted by the Army, and Montgomery and Stone attempt to perform the script with detachment. Almost all of the performances go somewhat awry – who, after all, could react rationally to the delivery or reception of such news? This self-reference points to the constructed nature of The Messenger. I'm reminded of something the novelist Orhan Pamuk once said - “I write not to tell a story, but to compose a story.” Another, darker, question arises – are Montgomery's and Stone's performances to the families of killed soldiers related to Foster's and Harrelson's – the movie's – performances to us? As The Messenger relates, the actual news of a soldier's death could be related to the family by email or telegram, but a social want has created the CNS and the assignments of Montgomery and Stone. As “Home, Home on the Range” played over the closing credits, I wondered how our society will further process the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as they drag on, becoming more deadly and abstract.