Seven Pounds weighs heavy

In theaters Thursday: Bedtime Stories, Marley & Me, The Spirit, Valkyrie

New on DVD and Blu-Ray: Burn After Reading, Death Race, Hamlet 2

As Christmas brings family and friends together, the multiplexes, for better or worse, also herald a kind of sentimental season with a slate of movies born to be tearjerkers. What makes Will Smith’s new drama Seven Pounds unique and, quite frankly, refreshing is the fact that its consistent morbidity rarely pushes the cheap emotional buttons favored by the Patch Adams and Bucket List’s of the world. Instead Seven Pounds boldly remains emotionally torturous and bleak throughout for Smith’s lead, if not those he ends up aiding. And when the film is not morose, it is oblique with flashbacks and new characters we’re told very little about. Smith’s performance is a gamble as he jettisons his strengths (charisma, humor, confidence) and subtly embraces dejection and an almost dire hollowness, like never before. That said, he does remarkable work with a so-so screenplay by first-timer Grant Nieporte.

Smith stars as Ben Thomas an IRS agent who we quickly learn is more interested in the personal lives than the finances of those he’s auditing. He is judging these people and slotting them into two categories: deserving of help, and not. And as one hospital administrator finds out, you do not want to be found undeserving. I’ll try to remain as vague as the trailer–which no doubt some studio exec thought was the best way to hide the darker portions of this story–but Smith soon meets a series of strangers, all in dire situations, that he decides he can help in one way or another. Hint: The title is a reference to Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Why he is compelled to help complete strangers is revealed piecemeal via flashbacks, and the dramatic tension is suspended like a tight rope across this question: Will he go through with his plan?

I would have liked to see more of Smith’s character shine through the broken exterior, but Rosario Dawson gives the best performance of her career. Seven Pounds proves a unique and worthwhile film about grief and pain, and what one selfless man can do with it all when he decides to make his life about helping others. It’s not your typical Christmas movie, but it reflects the Christmas message: True love is sacrifice, and the greatest gifts are those we cannot earn for ourselves.