It’s clear that writer/director Jason Hall—who also wrote the screenplay for
American Sniper—has a deep respect for the sacrifices made by those who serve in America’s military. If he’d had just a little more respect for the David Finkel book that is his source material, he’d have had a much better movie. Hall focuses on two Iraq War veterans returning home to Kansas in 2007—Adam Schumann (Miles Teller) and Solo Aieti (Beulah Koale)—whose psychological scars make finding stateside normalcy a different kind of battle. The two central performances both nail the mounting frustration of men whose lack of visible wounds makes their trauma feel somehow shameful—Koale is particularly terrific at conveying horror at losing himself—while Hall emphasizes the bureaucracy that leaves veterans without enough support. What’s missing is the point of view of wives, widows and other homefront family members also affected by these haunted men, a perspective Finkel delivered but is only barely hinted at in characters like Adam’s wife (Haley Bennett). Literalized hallucinations at times oversimplify a story that ripples through so many American lives beyond those of the actual soldiers.
By
Scott Renshaw