Stars: Woody Harrelson, Ben Foster, Samantha Morton
Running time: 112 mins
Rating: ***

OREN Moverman’s The Messenger is a war movie, but the battles are being fought in the mind. It’s a brave film to tackle a subject that’s not obviously commercial or even cinematic. You can understand why the film has been sitting on a shelf for a few years, but the sheer power of the script and the performances pull it through.

This is worth seeking out if only for the performances. Woody Harrelson is the veteran soldier nearly discharged and Ben Foster is the young staff sergeant newly-returned from the Middle East in a state of shock, who are given the job of informing the next of kin of soldiers who’ve been killed.

It’s a horrible job that Harrelson’s character gets through by adhering strictly to a set of rules. Foster, finding it hard to adjust to life off the battlefield, breaks the rules by getting too close to a widow (Samantha Morton, in a beautifully restrained, but no less emotional performance) to who’s been given bad news.