Guest blogger: Emilee K1

The movie Brothers came out in 2009, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire, also Co-Starring Natalie Portman. This movie is about the effects of war on the family of a Marine serving in Afghanistan. Tobey (Sam) and Natalie (Grace) are married in the film and have two children, Tobey is a marine and at first Sam is the calm, patient and loves what he does for his country, and his brother, Jake (Tommy) is reckless, doesn’t really care about anything and just got out of jail. A couple days after Tommy gets out of jail, Sam has to get deployed to Afghanistan again. And this is when things start to turn around kind of where the brothers switch rolls in life. Tommy starts to get more involved in Grace and the kids’ lives, trying to turn his life around. Whereas Sam, while in Afghanistan things aren’t going as planned. Their base gets attacked and some soldiers are taken hostage. So for all anyone knows, the ones taken are dead. Grace gets a knock on the door from two men, fully dressed in their uniforms, probably the worst sight for anyone who really knows what this means. Grace is informed that Sam is dead. She cries for days and days, but she told a close friend that it doesn’t “feel” like he is really gone. Now that Sam is gone, Tommy has been around more and more. And the kids are starting to get real attached to him, saying “I like Tommy more than daddy”. But while all this is going on at home they come to show later on in the movie that Sam is one of the soldiers that got taken hostage by Afghan soldiers. And the time spent here is horrid; Sam is faced with some very serious decisions and because of these decisions, is whether or not he will make it home safe or alive. All his family back home does not know that he is alive. After a few months Sam makes it home, and everything has changed. Especially Sam, because of what he had done in Afghanistan he is always paranoid, he sleeps with a gun, and convinces himself that Tommy and Grace are sleeping together. Everyone is still glad to see that he is alive, but you can almost feel the tension that the family has, knowing that Sam is back and back for good. But that’s what you think; there is a big twist towards the end that you wouldn’t expect. You have to watch and find out what happens with Tommy, Grace and Sam. Some reviews that I read on movies.nytimes.com were mixed, either people loved it or it was just so-so. Some thought that Natalie’s performance wasn’t the best, but another said that the movie wasn’t focused on her it was on the brothers. Which I agree with, it was called Brothers for a reason. Also Tobey Maguire did amazing, he had lost so much weight for this roll, and I think that he portrayed the emotions very well. Because he literally almost went crazy, and you could totally feel and see that. It is defiantly worth your time and money to see this movie, I own it and I still love to sit down and watch even though I have seen it so many times! It is suspenseful, romantic and very emotional so if you like movies like this, you should see it.