Seven Pounds (2008)

We know that “Tim” (Will Smith) was involved in a car accident that saw his fiancée and six others killed. Now, six months later, he quits his well-paid engineering job and determines to do what he can to help make seven people’s lives better. Firstly, he helps his younger brother (“Ben”) with a partial lung transplant, and then he adopts his IRS inspector identity to help out “Emily” (Rosario Dawson) who has got herself $50k in the hole with Uncle Sam. He isn’t cavalier about whom he helps, indeed he goes to quite some effort to select those he wants to assist - and it’s a far from traditional sort of aid that he offers, too. Part of his liver goes to childcare worker “Holly”, then a kidney to “George”. Bone marrow (ouch!) to a young lad and then then thanks to “Holly” he encounters “Connie” (Elpedia Carrillo). She is having a very hard time with her abusive boyfriend. His solution to her predicament is magnanimous and sees him, and his pet jellyfish, take up residence in a grotty motel where he continues to selectively dispense what's left of his largesse. “Ezra” (Woody Harrelson) is a blind telesales man, a vegetarian who sells meat, and a man who appears to have the patience of a saint. “Tim” is still clearly struggling with the grief of the accident and it’s ensuing guilt and loneliness and he has a plan to deal with this - the snag, however, is that he hadn’t factored in his new relationship with “Emily”. Aside from helping her with her huge debt, she also has an heart condition and as he spends more time weeding her unkempt garden, romance blooms. Will it offer him some salvation of his own, or is he too set on his own path? It’s quite a touching story that allows Smith to prove that he’s actually capable of some nuanced acting for a change. He delivers well here as does Dawson but for me, it's the sparing role from Harrelson that stole this for me and again it proves that he, too, can play a convincing character in an engaging less-is-more style. I also liked the fact that the denouement, indeed the whole film, kept clear of sentiment as this "Tim" makes something unique from his own version of a “living will”. It’s a compelling film to watch with a collection of fine supporting performances, and not at all what I was expecting.