Wages of war, bonds of love

In a recent interview, David Benioff, the screenwriter of Brothers, talked about the strange sensation of adapting Susanne Bier's pitch-perfect Danish film of the same name to English, describing the process as a form of "sanctioned plagiarism."

And, indeed, there are scenes in the Jim Sheridan-directed remake that are identical to the riveting 2004 drama, about a soldier who goes to war and the wife and black-sheep brother he leaves behind. Connie Nielsen, a native Dane, starred in the original with the very fine actors Ulrich Thomsen and Nikolaj Lie Kaas. Natalie Portman plays the wife and mother in Sheridan and Benioff's version, Tobey Maguire the deployed Marine, Jake Gyllenhaal his ex-con sibling.

And all three - Portman, Maguire, Gyllenhaal - turn in the best work of their careers.

Maguire is Sam Cahill, a Marine captain, called up for a return trip to Afghanistan with his men. He leaves behind two young daughters and Grace (Portman), his high school sweetheart. (She has "Sam" tattooed on her shoulder.) The Cahill girls are accustomed to his absences, but no less anxious each new time he decamps. The officers in dress uniform who come knocking on neighbors' doors in this Minnesota military town are an all too familiar - and dreaded - sight.

And this time, the bearers of bad news arrive at the Cahills' front steps. Sam was in a helicopter that crashed in rugged terrain in Taliban country. He is presumed dead.

While the audience discovers that Sam has survived and is being held prisoner, for the Cahills the process of mourning - the ache, the grief - begins to bore a hole into the family's collective soul. Sam's father, a Vietnam vet who long ago turned to booze, is broken by the loss of his "good" son. Sam Shepard is this bitter, taciturn man, and it's a fine portrayal. And young Bailee Madison, as Sam and Grace's firstborn, Isabelle, gives one of those frighteningly empathetic performances that little kids in the company of practiced actors sometimes, somehow, come up with. Her hurt is palpable.