Brothers 2009 Reviewed Upon placing Brothers in my DVD player, my knowledge of the film consisted of the fact that it was a modern war film, starring Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman. Considering the devastatingly superb performances given by Tobey Maguire and Bailee Madison, Maguire’s on-screen daughter, I would have expected to have seen an advert or at least heard of this film in the year since its release. The film is the story of, as you may have guessed, two brothers. Sam (Maguire) and Tommy Cahill (Gyllenhaal) are two very different brothers: Sam, the ideal family-man and soldier, has two daughters with wife Grace (Portman) and a steady #life; Tommy on the other hand, fresh from an unexplained bout behind bars, is more of a young tearaway with a liking for alcohol. Yet to settle down, and frowned upon by his father, Tommy is sobered up one nightwhen he asks to borrow Grace’s car and is told that Sam has died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. Tommy then takes it upon himself to help out around the house whilst Grace mourns. He forms a strong relationship with her (which climaxes in a kiss) and his nieces. However when the two are informed of Sam’s still being alive, they forget that anything ever happened and Sam is welcomed home by all. His mind is not at rest though, as he has been forced to do terrible deeds by his captors in the Middle-East, and he is paranoid that Tommy and Grace have had sex in his absence and asks on multiple occasions if they have done so. His madness increases, causing his family much distress, until he risks everything that he loves. Once I had decided to review the film, I immediately felt a sense of relief that I would be able to rave about so many aspects of this true to #life adaption of the Dutch original. As already mentioned, the two standout actors are Maguire and Madison. Maguire, whose real break came with the Spiderman franchise, plays a perfect madman, staying silent when others would have screamed and shouted, begging the question as to why he hasn’t had more major roles in the years since Spiderman. Madison’s character is a young girl who is deeply affected by the “death” of her father, but even more troubling for her are the mental problems that he brings home with him. There is one scene in particular that almost made me feel that she wasn’t acting at all, in which it is her sister’s birthday and she is getting little attention. She is an extremely promising young actress with a great deal of experience already, as shown by the numerous nominations she received for her performance. Aside from the acting talents in the film, it is a touching but devastating story of suspense that touches on topics that affect people around the world every day. I honestly cannot compare it to any film I have ever seen, perhaps because it is so hard to create a good film out of this sort of material. I definitely don’t expect to see a movie of a similar nature any time soon because it will not top this! I implore everyone to watch it as I have seen a film neither as touching nor as thought-provoking as this in a long while. 9/10