United 93 (the movie)

Sigh. For those of you who haven’t seen it, I do recommend it, but it may be one of the most difficult, most painful movies I’ve ever sat through. Everyone knows what happened that day, and if you’re even a little bit like me, you’ve watched way too many news reports, read too many articles, and been more interested in the events of that day than is good for anyone. Of course, I think we should be interested in that day and everything that’s gone on since then, but that said, dwelling on it 24/7 doesn’t do anyone any good either, and I’m certain that even those who lost people that day don’t do that, if, as I imagine they do, they’re interested in having full lives regardless of their grief. Huh. I just typed ‘full loves’ by accident. Make of that what you will. Anyway, I’m being a little rambly here because I’m still sort of in shock – this movie made me twitch and tremble, quite literally, and ultimately found me in heaving sobs. I thought it was done incredibly well and as accurately as might be possible. They had the good sense to use unknown actors, the music was very subtle and tense although I’m sure it would have been just as intense with no music at all, and for me, the reason it was so effective was because almost for the duration of the film, I found it impossible not to imagine what it would have been like to be on that plane that day; how little information these passengers had but managed to relay it to one another enough to try to prevent an even worse disaster, knowing that they were going to die, what I might do in a similar situation, whether I’d be able to try to help in any way, what I’d say if I could try to reach my loved ones. Which isn’t really a filmgoing experience one can ever refer to as entertainment, but which, in my opinion, has value above and beyond just watching the news. It’s interesting to me – I hear a lot about how people have forgotten, how we’ve just moved on since September 11, and I’m not sure that’s true at all. I suppose I can only speak for myself. Hearing news of the increasingly more purposeless war every day, listening to that guy continue to speak of WMDs – yaaaahhhh! – I don’t see how any of us can forget anything. But at the same time, we leave our houses, we go to work, we connect with our friends and family, we go on living, or loving, as I typod earlier. Do we really have any other option? WMDs, terrorism, e-coli, whatever, I could go down to the yard get killed in a freak hammock accident. Yes, we have an obligation to make the world a better place, whatever that means to any of us. The world needs a lot of help, so as far as I’m concerned, there are about a million different ways to do that. Good god, what the hell am I doing here? Is this a pep talk, morbid reflection, or both? Who am I to say any of this? I don’t know anything. Don’t listen to me. I suppose this gives you an idea of where my mind went watching this movie, anyway. God, and I still have another 9/11 movie on my Netflix queue...