United 93: Unsettlingly effective

United 93 is a highly disturbing movie.

The main reason for this is its commitment to realism. It deals with actual events and, therefore, carries the emotional weight of 9/11 on its back. A lesser film would have used that weight to manipulate the audience but director Paul Greengrass avoids this by maintaining a naturalistic style. Most of the shots are hand-held which gives the impression that we are watching a documentary and subtly implies that everything you see is real. Also, the score avoids indicating how the audience should feel. There's no sweeping music at the dramatic moments and this enables you to experience emotions in your own time. I found myself getting choked up a little bit after the big moments after I'd had a minute to process things.

The illusion of reality is maintained by the cast of largely unknown actors. One of the curses of becoming a successful actor is that is that people eventually begin to see you as more of a personality than a character. With unknown actors you don't have that kind of distraction. The film also spent a lot of time dealing with the air-traffic controllers and others on the ground who are slow to realize what is going on. The cliche thing to do in a movie like this would be to indicate the seriousness of the situation to the audience by having the actors get freaked out. However this film shows the characters as competent but ignorant. This forces the audience to engage with the film and supply the sense of urgency that we know is required but that these observers fail to realize.

This isn't an easy film to watch, partly because of the tragic subject matter and partly because it asks so much of the viewer. Audiences today have been lulled by films that only seek to passively entertain them so when something like this comes along it can be very challenging.

However, there was one aspect of the movie that really bothered me. In a film that dealt with highly contentious issues by being largely apolitical (it left all of the judgments up to you), it was a shame to see the one European passenger portrayed as naively attempting to appease the terrorists. It came off as a cheap shot against the French, Germans, etc. and it seems beneath this film.