Brothers

Plot

USMC officer Sam Cahill is about to be sent to war in Afghanistan in 2007. He is married to his high school sweetheart, Grace, with whom he has two young daughters, Isabelle and Maggie. Sam's younger brother, Tommy, is released from prison on parole after being arrested for armed robbery. At a family dinner with Hank and Elsie, the Cahills' parents, Hank insults Tommy for not understanding his brother's duty and for his criminal past.

During Sam's tour, his helicopter is shot down. He and Private Joe Willis are the sole survivors. They are taken prisoner by the Taliban, but are declared killed in action by the US government. Upon hearing the news of his brother's presumed death, Tommy berates Grace for letting Sam go to Afghanistan. At Sam's memorial service, Hank attempts to drive Elsie and the girls home while drunk, but Tommy intercepts him. Hank once again berates Tommy, and Tommy accuses Hank of influencing Sam to join the Marines because of his own Vietnam War service.

Tommy attempts to mend his relationship with Hank. He bonds with Grace, aided by his growing paternal connection with Isabelle and Maggie. Tommy also apologizes to the bank teller who he held at gunpoint during the robbery. Grace and Tommy unwittingly kiss, but do not take their attraction any further. Meanwhile, Sam and Joe are tortured by their captors and Sam is eventually forced to brutally beat Joe to death with a metal pipe.

Several months later, Sam is rescued and returns home. He struggles to readjust, showing signs of severe post-traumatic stress disorder; his daughters grow fearful and resentful toward him. Sam also lies to Joe's widow about her husband's death. His paranoia causes him to believe Grace and Tommy fell in love while he went away. When Grace questions Sam about what happened in Afghanistan, Sam does not answer and demands to know what happened between her and Tommy. Grace tells Sam that she and Tommy shared only one kiss while he was gone, but Sam has trouble believing that is all that happened.

During Maggie's birthday party, Isabelle complains that she never got what she wanted for her birthday and that Sam was also absent on her birthday. Isabelle begins to play with a balloon loudly, causing Sam to become exasperated and annoyed and pop the balloon in rage in front of the family. A hurt Isabelle falsely claims that Tommy and Grace are having an affair and angrily tells Sam that she wishes he had actually died.

Cast

Tobey Maguire as Capt. Samuel "Sam" Cahill, a USMC officer who is sent to war in Afghanistan

Jake Gyllenhaal as Thomas "Tommy" Cahill, Sam's younger brother

Natalie Portman as Grace Cahill, Sam's wife

Sam Shepard as Henry "Hank" Cahill, Sam & Tommy's father

Mare Winningham as Elsie Cahill, Sam & Tommy's stepmother

Bailee Madison as Isabelle Cahill, Sam & Grace's older daughter and Tommy's niece

Taylor Geare as Margaret "Maggie" Cahill, Sam & Grace's younger daughter and Tommy's niece

Patrick Flueger as Pvt. Joseph "Joe" Willis

Clifton Collins Jr. as Maj. Cavazos

Carey Mulligan as Cassie Willis, Joe's wife

Omid Abtahi as Yusuf

Ethan Suplee as Sweeney

Navid Negahban as Murad

Yousef Azami as Taliban Leader

Jenny Wade as Tina

César Évora as Gabriel

Enayat Delawary as Ahmed

Arron Shiver as A. J.

Ray Prewitt as Owen

Soundtrack

Brothers (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album for the film, which contains the score composed by Thomas Newman. It was released by Relativity Music Group on November 30, 2009. The song "Winter", performed by the Irish rock band U2, was released on February 27, 2009, and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song at the 67th Golden Globe Awards.

Reception

Box office

Brothers grossed $28.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $14.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $43.5 million. It was produced on a budget of $26 million.

In the United States, Brothers opened on December 4, 2009, alongside Everybody's Fine and Armored. It grossed $3.6 million on its first day, in 2,088 theaters, with an average of $1,711 per theater. It grossed $9.5 million in its opening weekend, with an average of $4,563 per theater, ranking in third place behind The Twilight Saga: New Moon. The film closed on January 21, 2010, with $28.5 million domestically.

Critical response

Brothers received mixed reviews from film critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 63% of 156 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.2/10. The website's consensus reads: "It plays more like a traditional melodrama than the Susanne Bier film that inspired it, but Jim Sheridan's Brothers benefits from rock-solid performances by its three leads." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 58 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

Tobey Maguire received critical acclaim for his dramatic performance; Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars and wrote that Brothers is "Tobey Maguire's film to dominate, and I've never seen these dark depths in him before." Claudia Puig of USA Today observed the resemblance between Maguire and Gyllenhaal, and praised their onscreen chemistry. Regarding Portman's performance, Puig opined that it was "subdued and reactive". Writing for New York magazine, David Edelstein praised the three main actors: "Sheridan's actors work with their intellects fully engaged—and they engage us on levels we barely knew we had." He also complimented the cinematography and Sheridan's ability to pull the reader into the plot. Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman gave the film a rating of C+, writing, "Brothers isn't badly acted, but as directed by the increasingly impersonal Jim Sheridan, it’s lumbering and heavy-handed, a film that piles on overwrought dramatic twists until it begins to creak under the weight of its presumed significance."

Home media

Brothers was released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 23, 2010.

Opera adaptation

Brothers – The Opera is an opera based on the original 2004 Danish version of the film by Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason; it was premiered at the Musikhuset Aarhus on 16 August 2017. It was commissioned by Den Jyske Opera. Kerstin Perski wrote the libretto and the director was Kasper Holten. To celebrate Aarhus as the European Capital of Culture 2017, three stage works – a musical, dance, and an opera all based on films by Susanne Bier – were commissioned and performed in Musikhuset.