Starring: Gabriel Byrne, Isabelle Huppert, Jesse Eisenberg, Devon Druid, Amy Ryan, David Strathairn, Rachel Brosnahan
Distributor: Sharmill Films
Runtime: 109 mins. Reviewed in Aug 2016
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Louder than Bombs is an evocative title. While there is a great deal about wars, bombs and their consequences and destruction, this occurs mainly in a series of photos rather than in the narrative of the film. The potential for bombs is not in overseas wars but in conflicts within the family.
In fact, this is very much a film about family and its tensions. It opens with the older son of the family, Jonah, played by Jesse Eisenberg rather more calmly than his usual performance, minus a lot of the Jesse Eisenberg-tics.His wife has just given birth, and he is awkward with her. But, this is to set the tone of the film because he is not the main character.
We then meet Jonah’s father, Gene, a former actor but now a teacher. In the past, he has related well with his two sons but now there is a tension with his younger son, Conrad (Devon Druid in a very convincing performance). The basic situation is that his wife, his boys’ mother, has died two years earlier. We have learned that she was a war photographer, absolutely fearless, going to the Balkans, going to the Middle East, involved in all kinds of dangerous situations with a portfolio of extraordinary photos. In the film, the photos do make quite an impact with their close-ups of war situations of all kinds – and in the final credits it is noted that many photographers contributed to the portfolio. There is a plan for an exhibition of the photos which means that father and sons have to look into their mother’s room and assess the various photos that she left behind.
in an interesting piece of casting, the mother, called Isabelle, is played by Isabelle Huppert, one of the most versatile actresses for many decades. she appears a great range of flashbacks as well as in a number of the photos, in the memories of her husband and children, are sometimes enigmatic but powerful character.
Conrad is at school, exceedingly introspective, telling his father he is with friends when he phones but in fact is not, his father following him (and then an effective sequence where we see the same scene from Conrad’s point of view). Conrad locks himself in his room, plays computer games and becomes very involved, shutting his father out (though his father does try to enter the game, creating a character, but is killed off almost immediately).
As the film builds up, there is a further complication insofar as the father is having an affair with Conrad’s teacher. She is a sympathetic woman (Amy Ryan) but becomes a target when Conrad accidentally sees them embrace in the school precinct.
Another part of the conflict is the information we are given early that their mother has killed herself after returning from wars but that the father and Jonah have not been able to tell Conrad the truth, he idolising his mother.
It would almost seem that many bombs will explode in the family in their desperate conflicts – but, not spoiling the outcome at all, it is safe to say that the film is not without some hope.
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