Seven Pounds | The Critique

It’s a film that observes a character who is behaving precisely, with no apparent motivation. A good actor brings such a role into focus, as Will Smith does in the enigmatically titled "Seven Pounds." Who is he, what does he want, why is he behaving so oddly? And why is he looking for people who need their own favors? And so on. For much of the first hour he seems to be acting according to a plan that seems perfectly clear, but only to him. The reason it goes unexplained is that he has no need to explain it to himself, and no way to explain it to anyone else.

Will Smith displays a rather impressive range of emotional speeds here. He can be a tough, merciless IRS man. He can bend the rules on some cases. He can have a candlelight dinner with a beautiful woman named Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson) and go home afterward. He is angry with people sometimes, but he seems angriest of all at himself. It's quite a performance.

Dawson makes Emily not simply a woman confused, maybe offended, by his behavior, but a woman of instinctive empathy, following his lead when he needs to be treated like an IRS agent or like a perfect gentleman or like a man who needs understanding even if she doesn't know what she's supposed to understand.

I haven't even hinted about the hidden motives in this film. Miraculously for once, even the trailers don't give anything away.  Gabriele Muccino, who also directed Smith in "The Pursuit of Happyness” is effective at timing the film's revelations so that they don't come suddenly like a U-turn; they're revealed at the last necessary points in the story.

Written By: Ali Naqvi