The Messenger delivers a harrowing trip inside the dedication and honor of the warrior

How do you deliver heartbreaking, life shattering and soul numbing news about the loss of a loved one? Well if you serve in the U.S. military you do it with honor, discipline and a dogged determination to follow protocol to the letter. In The Messenger, a new film starring Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster, director Warren Moverman brings this paean to the warrior, to these messengers, to the screen. It is a harrowing, cringe worthy and haunting experience that will leave you shaken and humbled by this unblinking portrayal of duty to country and community.

In todays faster than the speed of light communications age a telegram simply won’t do. When a next of kin must be notified of the terrible news it must be done in hours to keep one step ahead of cable, twitter and cell phone. Harrelson and Foster deliver Oscar worthy performances as they portray these messengers with a fierce nuance. Think that’s a contradiction in terms? Michael Caine once counseled aspiring actors that the key to playing a drunk is to remember that at all costs they wish to not appear drunk. In other words feel broadly the internal battle that must be hidden externally. So it is with Harrelson and Foster as they must feel and anguish yet keep it all inside and follow a script that calls for strict adherence to the protocol. In other words, keep it painfully simply real.

Supporting characters including Samantha Morton and Steve Buscemi play recipients of the tragic message as a spouse who loses a husband and a father who loses a son. In each case the notification is played without rehearsal. Moverman wanted to ensure that the moment was freshly experienced between the actors and the first time they met in character was in scene. It’s a remarkable piece of stagecraft and the results are brilliantly squeamish. The audience witnesses the notification, the feeling of walking to the door in an experience that surely must leave many theater goers holding their collective breath as the moment of painful truth arrives.

Co-writers Moverman and Alessandra Camon weave a tale that doesn’t mince words; playing the development of the two men’s relationship as others fall by the wayside. The portray their dedication to duty and to one another as they live each moment anticipating the next notification while struggling to live as if it were not coming. The Messenger brings us inside the steely architecture of those who serve and leaves us marveling at the strength of character without succumbing to the all too easy drift into melodrama. There is no need for melodrama, sympathy or sentimentality. We know the cost, we support the warrior; yet until The Messenger we did so from the outside. The Messenger is a brilliant journey inside a truth that must be experienced.

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