United 93

I usually don’t do movie reviews, but United 93 is so atypical a movie, it hardly feels my rule (if I really have such a rule) is being broken. I saw it with Daughter Number 2 last Friday night, and the images and events I witnessed made so deep an impression on me that, despite my having gone to bed well past midnight, I woke up a little past 6:00 Saturday morning with a vague yet palpable anxiety, and couldn’t get back to sleep. I kept replaying the film in my mind until I gave up on sleep entirely and got up at around 7:15. The only other movie that has ever had that kind of impact on me was The Passion of the Christ, when I found myself, at 1:30 in the morning, reading the World Book Encyclopedia article on Jesus and afterward rummaging around downstairs for the Bible. The movie was that intense. From beginning to end my stomach was in a knot. I’ll only state a few of my impressions and quickly mention here that I haven’t, as yet, read any reviews.

United 93 moves along more or less in real time. The dialogue is extremely real. My guess is the actors with speaking roles had a basic script to follow, but were well-drilled in the circumstances and backgrounds of each character and were allowed great latitude with ad libbing. For instance, actors playing air traffic controllers must have been given some kind of on-the-job experience, and you could tell that settings such as control towers, military command centers and so on had been scrupulously recreated to resemble the real thing. I even noticed at the end, when they rolled the credits, that quite a few real-life players in the drama that day played themselves. Everything was very, very believable. The cinematography was mainly done with hand-held cameras, and the director often let one camera roll for a long time in between cuts, which helped enhance the feeling of immediacy. As a spectator, sitting there in my comfortable chair and knowing what was going to happen, I felt like a powerless, mute ghost who could only helplessly watch these ordinary, hardworking, good people find out things little by little.

Here is what I think is the most effective element of United 93: it is uncritical. It only means to show, to recreate. Certainly no one knows for sure what happened on that flight — after all, there are only the black box recordings and recounted phone conversations that loved ones had with the victims who were trapped on that doomed jetliner to go by. Yet somehow it doesn’t matter, because you walk away believing the essence of the terrible drama that took place that day was accurately captured. The terrorists in the film are portrayed as human beings, just like their victims — there is nothing Hollywood about them at all. You can see how they screwed themselves up to the sticking point, having worked themselves to a state of mind that admitted of no other options than their single-minded, deadly purpose. The leader is portrayed as a man you could imagine having a pleasant, philosophical debate with over a decanter of wine. He is young, pensive, educated, and at times seems to be of two minds about this incredible thing he’s set out to do, while the others with him, less intellectual, are more firm of purpose. The passengers and crew are exactly like all other passengers and crew you’ve flown with before. Everyone in the film, from those in the air to those on the ground, acted precisely like everyone acts in real life when confronted with the fantastic and the ridiculously out of scale: irresolute, emotional, strong, weak, and heroic. Honest to God, after watching that movie, you feel as if you were there. Certainly not for everyone, but I recommend it. Consider it a Schprock Lock.