Brothers ***1/2

Brothers is held aloft primarily by the strong performances of its three lead actors. Tobey Maguire plays Captain Sam Cahill, a family man committed to serving his country. Jake Gyllenhaal is his brother Tommy, a likeable enough guy who likes to get drunk and occasionally, and unsuccessfully, rob banks. Natalie Portman plays Grace Cahill, wife to Sam and sister-in-law to Tommy, whom she detests until he becomes a bigger part of her and her children’s lives after news of Sam’s death reaches their Minnesota home.

The rub is that Sam’s not really dead. His helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan, and we soon learn that he and one of his men are being held captive. The film intercuts between Tommy and Grace coping with the loss of a brother and a husband and Sam’s intense hardships as a “Prisoner of War.” This middle section of the film is troublesome because the Afghanistan story thread is unnecessary. It would have been more effective if we were only to imagine what Sam could have gone through in Afghanistan—how he survived, what he endured. Nonetheless, and I’m not ruining much considering it’s in the trailer, Sam eventually finds his way home.

In the third act these relationships come to a head. Sam is clearly suffering both mentally and emotionally, and it’s difficult for him to transition back to domestic life. This is especially tough considering so much has changed. Tommy has become an important part of his daughters’ lives, and Sam becomes convinced that Tommy and Grace have been intimate. Regardless of whether it happened or not, Sam is convinced it happened. He lives on pins and needles. His daughters often fear him. He can’t be close to his wife. And he is harboring severe guilt and grief.

The film is directed by Jim Sheridan, whose In America was one of the best films of 2002. At the heart of that film was family, and so it is with Brothers. I have mentioned the three leads, but there are also some other outstanding performances, most noticeably Sam Shepard as the brothers’ father and Bailee Madison as Isabelle Cahill, daughter to Sam and Grace. Her performance is so honest it’s heartbreaking. She cries at her father’s death, yet she cannot fully understand why or how he returned in the state he did. She upsettingly reminds him that “You weren’t here for my birthday,” sobbing through her anger, “you were in stupid Afghanistan.”