A Tense Tearjerker -- As You Cry Out of Despair

Rating: 9/10 (2 June 2005)

Yes, "Crash" is theatrical and full of coincidences, in an "Amores Perros" roundelay as people from a broad array of races and classes are set off by the contact of their cars and then their stereotyped perceptions of each other to bounce off each other.
But with this concentrated yet diverse group writer/director Paul Haggis is able to represent sprawling Los Angeles in a manageable and searingly effective ensemble, and show up how non-diverse most movies and TV series are.
The initiating premise is similar to Lawrence Kasdan's 1991 "Grand Canyon," but that film looks sunnily optimistic and Utopian compared to race relations in L.A. today, in a city where people don't even have to rub shoulders with each other on mass transit. From the superficial exteriors of race, gender, dress and language, each character instantly judges the others out of context, usually to devastating consequences; the layers are pulled back as each is rubbed raw by their contact with the other.
Each action leads to unpredictable consequences that unexpectedly affect another person and no good deed goes unpunished. No one is left unscarred, though not everyone learns a lesson from their experiences, from the most naive (Ryan Philippe putting his preternatural baby face to good effect for a rookie cop) to the most jaded (Don Cheadle using a whole new body language than his other films for his police detective). Every character has flaws, either from their past or present, and almost none are quite the stereotype they seem at first, especially as each is pushed in unexpected directions to do unpredictable actions.
Virtually the entire ensemble is note perfect, particularly Terrence Dashon Howard as an African-American man who quickly adjusts (and misadjusts) his style to fit into his various social environments. Sandra Bullock has surprising dramatic authority, even if her character is less revelatory than the others, and Brendan Fraser as her husband has the only one-note of less credibility as a too young and too stiff district attorney.
The language is frank and lacerating in its confrontations, bordering on Mamet and LaBute territory for its bluntness about American society, but I never cry at those playwrights' works and I cried here out of hopelessness and despair.
Oddly, the soundtrack selections make little ironic note of the Christmas season setting, but there is some quiet commentary of each character listening to separate songs, such as hip hip or country, to subtly indicate the different musical environment they create around themselves (but not, Lyle Lovett's "L.A. County" though his music would have been more appropriate here than in "The Interpreter"). There is also the ethereal world music that Haggis used similarly atmospherically in his groundbreaking "E Z Streets" television series.
I saw the film with an integrated, multi-ethnic audience in Queens, NY that in the first half reacted in turn in support of seeing themselves represented on the screen, but throughout the second half was dead silent. This film will make for good discussion groups, particularly in contrast to Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing" as that phrase takes on many more layers here. I do wonder what input the cast had in the dialog; if Haggis had used a Mike Leigh-style involvement, such as with "Vera Drake," the language could be assured of authenticity as well as electricity.