Reign Over Me -- Powerful Post 9/11 Drama

Reign Over Me, a powerful new post-9/11 drama, features two of the year's most gripping performances by Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle. Sandler, as almost no one has ever seen him, stars as Charlie Fineman, a former dentist who lost his wife and three daughters in one of the plane crashes on 9/11. Don Cheadle portrays Alan Johnson, Charlie's college roommate and a successful dentist who spots Charlie one day on a street in New York City. Having read about the tragedy involving Charlie's family, Alan uses the chance encounter to rekindle his friendship with the reclusive former dentist. Charlie, who spends the majority of his time alone playing electronic games in his apartment, welcomes the opportunity to get to know Alan again. The two men spend a substantial amount of time together, and yet Alan notices that Charlie never mentions the family he lost on 9/11.

Cheadle's Johnson is in stark contrast to Sandler's Fineman. Alan is happily married with two daughters and is comfortable with the responsibilities that come with running a booming dental practice. But the more time Alan spends with Charlie, the more Alan's wife (Jada Pinkett) senses that his growing relationship with Charlie provides him with something that he is seemingly unable to receive from their marriage. On the other hand, Charlie becomes more and more dependent on Alan and demonstrates on more than one occasion just how emotionally repressed and stunted the tragic deaths of his family have left him.

Alan's renewed friendship with the emotionally wounded Charlie is a challenge for him and his wife. He struggles with the obligation he feels he owes Charlie, and is somewhat tempted by the freedom he briefly experiences during their nights out on the town. Gradually, Alan understands that Charlie's way of coping with his losses is to shut out the rest of the world and to rearrange the kitchen the way he thinks his wife would have liked. In response to his observation, Alan seeks help from a counselor friend, a beautiful and serene Liv Tyler, who shares the same office building. Charlie proves to be a demanding client for her indeed.

Reign Over Me is especially insightful in the way it explores love and friendship and the equilibrium that they bring to our states of being. The film shows us a wandering Charlie, who lost all that he loved. It effectively depicts his struggle to come to grips with his losses and to regain his equilibrium through his renewed friendship with Alan. For his part, Alan gains strength and balance from his friendship to address some brewing issues in his own life. The film reminds us just how vulnerable we all are, not only to potentially devastating tragedies, but to losing the equilibrium needed for us to maintain who we are and who we are destined to become.

Written and directed by Mike Binder, the film displays a confidence in the way it depicts its characters and their travails. Reign Over Me is the second impressive film from Binder, who directed The Upside of Anger, an equally-effective drama about an alcoholic mother of four daughters grappling with the disappearance of her husband. With this effort here, Binder has given us the first post-9/11 movie of its type, a searing drama that explores not only the loss of life but the loss of love and the states of being suffered by those who must pick up the pieces from that fateful day. Although there are some comedic moments throughout Binder's script, it is the deep yearning for love to reign over the lives of the film's emotionally-wounded characters (echoed in the film's fitting original song by Pete Townshend) that is most likely to linger in the hearts and minds of viewers long after the film concludes.

Grade: B+