By Erik Jimenez
The war film genre has made its existence on putting audiences through the situations that soldiers around the world experience during their service. Surprisingly, few focus on what happens when they come back from war and how they cope after experiencing things that many of us will have the fortune of never seeing in our lives. In a decade where we have seen films on the War on Terrorism try to tell the stories of U.S. soldiers around the world and experience critical and commercial acclaim with the likes of “Lone Survivor,” “American Sniper” and “13 Hours,” it feels good to see a film like “Thank You for Your Service” arrive on screens to try and tell the story of those who have trouble coming back home. I just wish it was as good as any of the previous films I’ve mentioned.
“Thank You For Your Service” is based on the nonfiction book of the same name, which tells the story of a group of soldiers coming home from Iraq in 2008 and their struggles to integrate back into society due to their PTSD and a terrible secret that they share which cost the lives of one of their sergeants. The troops are played by Miles Teller, Beulah Koale, and Joe Cole. They all have solid, though mostly solemn, performances that express their pain not through dialogue but in their actions, particularly in their faces.
It is a very difficult film to watch at times due to it exploring the very serious issues that so many of the men and women coming back from theatres of war. PTSD is presented in a stark and brutally honest way with almost no moments of levity.
Miles Teller’s character, Adam, struggles to keep his marriage to his wife (Haley Bennett) and his relationship to his family together while tackling the guilt he has for the death of his superior. Beulah Koale’s ‘Solo’ is the most severely damaged of the trio constantly struggling with his memories and his mood swings. Scott Haze’s character Emory, another soldier suffering from PTSD, is an emotional powerhouse of a character, possibly the best performance in the film.
But though the film’s treatment of PTSD is well-done, it seems to have overtaken the relationships that characters are supposed to have for one another. For example, Solo’s relationship with his wife (Keisha Castle-Hughes) is presented mainly in snapshot scenes that go by quickly and feel often forgotten. We don’t get the extra scenes that flesh out these moments. This results in us not feeling the emotion we are supposed to feel when twists and turns happen to these characters.
Even the comradery between these soldiers aren’t delved deep enough to establish the connections we’re supposed to feel between them so we can’t get wrapped up in their situation and surprisingly makes the film feel more distant than most other war films of this type.
This is mainly due to this being the directorial debut of actor Jason Hall who also wrote this film and the much superior ‘American Sniper’. Despite these issues, it’s still a somewhat promising debut for Hall and is still well worth seeing if you are interested in this type of film and the subjects it focuses on.
B-
Screen Skeptic is a column by Erik Jimenez that reviews the most recent films in theaters now. The views and opinions of Skreen Skeptic do not reflect that of FIU Student Media’s editorial board.
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