In this life, there are certain moments that cannot help but seemingly change everything. They are the inevitable and the unimaginable. They are the anticipated and they are the unexpected. They are life's firsts and they are life's lasts. And for Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) and Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) of the U. S. Army's Casualty Notification Service, they are the moments that pretty much make up every one of their days.

A simple film which follows Montgomery and Stone as they deliver notifications to the families of deceased soldiers and also struggle with the harsh realities of what they have each lived through themselves, The Messenger could easily be seen as a movie about the casualties of war. From a certain angle, it might be a statement about the damages war inflicts on those it sends back home and the scars of loss and pain it paints on even the lives of those who did not serve. But like any good movie about war or its aftermath, more than just a political statement or an issue-centered argument, in its story about two men struggling with both the events that have come to define their own lives and their participation in the brief moments which come to redefine the lives of those they visit, their story is one that speaks to not merely a world in which tragedies such as war stand to turn our lives completely upside down in a single instant, but to a reality in which other infinitely more powerful solitary moments, events, and realities can turn it right back around.

"What you actually need to do is pretty simple: read the guidebook, learn the script, stick to the script," Stone tells Montgomery soon after the film begins. But even before Montgomery and Stone have completed their first notification, what is more glaringly apparent than anything else is how little regard life has for any sort of script or plan&ellips; and that when everything we have thought we could always count on is suddenly pulled out from under us and nothing makes sense, it is going to take much more than a script or a guidebook to get us back on our feet.

Throughout the six notifications that Stone and Montgomery deliver, we watch as parents learn they are now childless, mothers learn that their children are now fatherless, and wives learn that they are now widows. In the moment that their loved one is suddenly wiped from existence and their own identity is suddenly redefined, each next of kin reacts differently. One parent slaps Stone in the face and demands he take it back. Another asks Montgomery why he isn't the one who's dead, why he isn't over there himself. One widow collapses into another loved one's arms in shock. Another calmly asks Scott and Montgomery how her husband died before the two men have even said a word. And with the promise of a visit from one of the Army's Casualty Assistance Officers, the two men finish their script and say goodbye.



Of course, that's not the end of the story. While we never see most of the next of kin Stone and Montgomery visit after they leave, several appear again. Although they have each been dealt a blow which has permanently altered their lives from what they were mere minutes before, into each of their lives enters the question, what will they do now and how exactly will they let this life-altering event change them? In a matter of seconds, we see one answer appear in the transformation of words of anger and disapproval into an embrace of love and comfort. In the time it takes for the news to sink in, we see one woman's choice not to receive the news with anger but to greet it with the extension of compassion for others on whom the loss is also taking a toll. Within several weeks, we witness that still-evolving response in one father's journey from blame and hatred to a sincere request for and extension of forgiveness. And as Montgomery struggles to come to terms with his own role in the saving of lives and their loss as well as the life he still has and the pieces of it he has lost, we watch as his life and world begin to slowly open up with the recognition of forgiveness, second chances, and belonging.

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