CINEMA: In The Valley Of Elah

The wonderful Tommy Lee Jones, so engaging in No Country For Old Men, once again gives a bravura performance here as the father of a soldier who goes missing on his return from Iraq. A one-time military MP himself, Hank Deerfield (Lee Jones) does not believe his son would go AWOL and sets out to investigate his disappearance.

However, once he’s at his son’s military base he finds those in charge are more than a little unhelpful. As his frustration with the slow workings of the authorities deepens he can only rely on the assistance of Police Detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron), who is fighting her own battle against sexist work colleagues who feel she’s only good enough to hand out tickets for driving violations.

The relationship between the experienced Hank and rookie Emily is a nice twist on the usual father/son, teacher/student scenario and their scenes together form the most satisfying section of the film. However, although the film is meticulously put together (in much the same way as Lee Jones meticulously makes his bed in one scene) there is something distant about it – it’s as if we are watching the process and sympathising at least three steps away from the events on screen.

This lack of involvement makes the film less effective than it could be and it is only when Hank’s wife (a curiously underused Susan Sarandon) breaks down and mourns her son that any real feeling is released. Dee Pilgrim