The Messenger

The Messenger centers on two soldiers whose daily mission consists of notifying wives and parents of their son's death in combat. While some may want to instantly group the film together with other films tangentially related to Iraq or the Gulf conflict, The Messenger has more in common with films that take on grief and achieve the emotional depth required to tell the story without condescension.
"I wanted the moments to be honest as possible," writer/director Oren Moverman tells Free Press Houston in a phone interview. "We're alive thinking about people we've lost." Moverman explains how he didn't hide the theme of war yet the film doesn't revolve around that issue so much as the human contact aspect involved in daily military life.
The Messenger stars Ben Foster as Staff Sergeant Montgomery with Woody Harrelson as his superior Captain Stone. Their relation mimics buddy movie relationships. They begrudgingly get along at first, even argue a bit but by the time they hit their stride they're hanging out together while crashing the wedding reception of Montgomery's former girlfriend.
"I originally read Woody for a much smaller role, the Colonel at the beginning who gives Foster his assignment. But he wanted to be Captain Stone." Harrelson's turn in The Messenger reveals his "remarkable range." Even more impressive when you compare Harrelson's stern and serious soldier next to his broadly comic roles in recent films like 2012 or Zombieland. Foster matches Harrelson scene for scene, also exploring dark places of the heart without the histrionics that marked some of his more wide-eyed roles, such as 3:10 to Yuma. Samantha Morton plays a widow who Foster and Harrelson notify only for Foster to break their code of not getting personal with the NOK (next of kin).
Moverman knew Morton from working on the screenplay of Jesus' Son. Other scripts Moverman worked on include I'm Not There. Originally it was conceived by Moverman and Todd Haynes as a stage version. " A way to create a Dylan experience." But another play fulfilled that function when Twyla Tharp did The Times They Are a Changin'. Still the story Moverman had come up with where Dylan's portrayed by different actors at different stages in his career was too good to pass up with the end result the tour de force film directed by Haynes.
The Messenger is Moverman's directorial debut although he worked on the script under the aegis of three previous directors (Sydney Pollack, Ben Affleck and Roger Michell). The film moves from static sequences for scenes like Montgomery at home in his apartment to hand held shots when the duo are notifying relatives of the loss of their loved ones. I had read that Moverman didn't allow the actors to meet beforehand. "It's true," he replies. "I would prepare them separately with no rehearsal. They would meet for the first time when we shot the scenes. Then when we shot in one-take with no interruptions."
There are actually several times in The Messenger when people are notified and to the film's credit each confrontation maintains its sincerity even as Montgomery and Stone are wading through the swamp of their own relation.