Fathers and Sons and War: 'In The Valley of Elah'

Of all the contemporary subjects for a film, the war in Iraq has to be the toughest and least suited for the medium. Movies have to have a structure, or, at the very least, a beginning and an end. At present, Iraq has a beginning but no end, and it seems right that a film – any film – about the war would also be irresolute. “In the Valley of Elah� is such a film.

There aren’t many stump speeches in “Valley,� which is perhaps surprising, given the subject matter and the film’s director, Paul Haggis, who is not known for subtlety. (Haggis directed “Crash,� a film that excited the conscience of the Screen Actors Guild and bored everyone else.) There is an honest, authentic core to this film, and it is Tommy Lee Jones, whose presence relieves “Valley� of its occasional hot air. Jones plays Hank Greenfield, a career Army man. Some people are territories unto themselves, sealed by habit and ritual. Hank is a frontier, so reticent and restrained that when he learns that his son, Mike, has gone AWOL after returning from a tour in Iraq, he drives halfway across the country to his son’s base, leaving his wife (an understated Susan Sarandon) behind with little more than a word.

At its elaborate and detailed surface, “Valley� moves like a police procedural drama, with Hank enlisting the help of a fierce and independent cop (Charlize Theron) to solve his son’s disappearence. There are a few detective story flourishes: a late night dinner at a chicken joint; drugs under the bed of a soldier’s mattress; strip club locales in seedy disrepair. There are also the videos from Iraq that Hank finds on his son’s cell phone, grainy, sun burnt dispatches with intimations of torture.

What’s going on here? In fact, the detective work is a bluff, secondary to the film’s theme of woe. Haggis draws out the conflict’s resonance: A career military man, Hank, though a Vietnam vet, is increasingly wearied by what he sees as the signs of national failure which no amount of patriotic bunting will fix. (Indeed, “In the Valley of Elah� is loosely based on the life of an Iraq vet at Fort Benning in Georgia.)

Most of all, there is Hank’s sad realization that his son was not the war hero he imagined him to be. As one soldier tells him, individual acts of heroism are swallowed up by a place like Iraq. As an actor, Jones has always played 10 years older than his age. Over the course of “Valley,� he seems to age another 10, the lines across his face crackling with woe. (The effect of Jone’s face is elaborated by Roger Deakins, the film’s cinematographer, who films “Valley� in a tired, washed-out light.)

“In the Valley� is haunted by irresolution. The final explanation does not satisfy and Hank is left with more questions than he began with. For now, though, that’s the best we’ll get out of Iraq.

“In the Valley of Elah,� rated R, is scheduled to arrive at The Moviehouse in Millerton.