Film for the writers - clean and precise!

When your job is to walk up to the house of a total stranger, ring the bell and inform them that their child has been killed in combat, it is hard to stay cold and calm. The film develops the two messengers as they meet survivors, notably Samantha Morton as a new widow, and Steve Buscemi as an angry father.

This is a writer's picture, no less than a visual experience that approaches its subject as tactfully as the messengers do. No fancy camerawork. It happens, we absorb it.

Directed by Oren Moverman.
Starring Woody Harrelson, Ben Foster, Jena Malone and Steve Buscemi.