Release Date:  November 13, 2009 (limited); November 20, 2009 (expands wider) 

Rating:  R (for language and some sexual content/nudity)

Genre:  Drama

Run Time:  105 min.

Director:  Oren Moverman

Actors:  Woody Harrelson, Ben Foster, Samantha Morton, Jena Malone, Steve Buscemi

The Messenger, like the new film Up in the Air, is about the people who deliver bad news. In Air, George Clooney and Anna Kendrick play professional downsizers—people who are hired by companies to fly into town and deliver the bad news to employees who have been laid off. Clooney's character is tasked with showing Kendrick's character the ropes.

In The Messenger, Woody Harrelson plays Captain Tony Stone, a casualty notification expert who instructs Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) on the procedures for letting folks on the home front know that their loved ones have been killed overseas. Like Clooney's corporate downsizer in Up in the Air, Stone has a long-developed expertise in how to deliver difficult news in person, and he has been tasked with conveying that expertise to someone who's unfamiliar with how to handle the varying reactions among those who receive such news face-to-face.

Stone tells Montgomery that there are procedures that work and which demand rigid adherence. "Read the script. Stick to the script," he advises. "Avoid physical contact. In case you feel like offering a hug, don't. It'll only get you in trouble." And, more ominously, "Some of them have guns."

Montgomery appears to take the news in stride, but it's hard to know what's going on behind his eyes. We know from the film's early scenes that he's in a sexual relationship with a woman who's involved with someone else; that his music of choice is heavy metal; and that he's in the final three months of his military service. He doesn't own a computer and appears to prefer isolation to human friendship.

It's Stone who does nearly all of the talking between them as they travel to deliver the news to one family after another. We watch as a father, upon hearing of his son's death, verbally abuses them, spits in Montgomery's face, and shoves him in the back. A woman hangs laundry as the men deliver the news, but seems more concerned that her child might catch a glimpse of the military messengers. A man learns simultaneously that his daughter has married a man of whom he disapproves and that the man has been killed, causing the father to pivot from an angry outburst to a comforting hug as his daughter absorbs the information.

Although Montgomery appears detached from his duty as a notification officer and cool to Stone's instruction, he can't help but feel drawn toward Olivia (Samantha Morton), to whom they deliver news about her husband's death. Stone, sensing Montgomery's attraction to Olivia, asks, "Where are your morals, hero?" but Montgomery is encouraged by Olivia's response to his advances.