Reign Over Me (2007)

Starring: Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle, Jada Pinkett Smith, Liv Tyler, Saffron Burrows, Donald Sutherland

First, The Lowdown: A dentist reunites with his college roommate, who lost his family in the 9/11 attack.

Alan Johnson practices cosmetic dentistry, has a lovely wife and two daughters, but does not have much else. His life entails staying at home and working- and that’s all. While on his afternoon commute home, Alan accidentally sees Charlie Fineman – his old roommate from dentistry school. But Alan’s attempts on getting Charlie’s attention are for naught because of the noise of traffic (and Charlie’s headphones). The next evening, however, Alan successfully meets up with his former schoolmate, only to find out that Charlie has no recollection of Alan at all.

Charlie used to be a successful dentist of his own, and then his wife and children died in the plane attack on the World Trade Center on September 11^th. The loss devastated Charlie so much that he withdrew away from anything that reminded him of his former life, instead building an insular wall that keeps him safe from painful memories, but also very alone. As such, Charlie has put everything from his put out of mind so that it can’t hurt him.

As Alan begins to hang out with Charlie, he finds that he wants to do all he can to Charlie heal his wounds. But Charlie has grown so accustomed to living has he has that he shies away from any help. The only people he has regular contact anymore is his landlady and his accountant (who used to be a close friend of Charlie’s his until the incident.) However, Alan is a new presence, and as such won’t inquire about Charlie’s family, nor will bring any reminders of them.

Meanwhile, the more Alan is around Charlie, the less he is around his own family – which further opens the rift of communication between Alan and his wife. And while Alan has taken a personal stake in helping Charlie overcome his obstacles, it becomes more clear that Alan is doing this for his own healing as well.

9/11 was a weird time for everyone involved. My uncle lives in Manhattan and thusly had front row seats to the entire event. For a while it looked like it was a wound that we were never going to heal from. But time is the ultimate healer – and in the years hence we have just begun to let go of some of the pain that was inflicted during that event.

Out of all of the “let’s revisit the World Trade Center disaster” movies that have been brought out recently, I think Reign Over Me is the least political. We’re not concerned with terrorism or politics, merely with healing. If anything, 9/11 is used more as an explanation rather than a backdrop – Charlie probably would’ve reacted the same way if he had lost his family to a fire or a car accident (or even a typical plane crash).

I was rather impressed with Adam Sandler’s performance in this movie. Much like Jim Carrey’s role in Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind, Sandler is very understated. Plus, there are a handful of lines that out of context could’ve been the punchline to a joke, but here they only emphasize how tragic Charlie truly is.

Line of the movie: “Any chance of you getting audited this week? Because that would make things even better.”

Four and a half stars. Beware the fourth estate.