Earlier this month, Adrien Brody became one of the rare performers to win the Best Actor Oscar twice. His first win was for 2002’s The Pianist, while his latest Academy Award was for The Brutalist.
Three years after his first Oscar-winning performance, Brody had another great turn in a low-budget sci-fi thriller called The Jacket, which hit theaters on March 4, 2005.
Although the poster for The Jacket has an ominous tagline — “Terror has a new name” — this is decidedly not a horror film. It does, however, include some disturbing sequences centered on Brody’s character, Jack Starks, and the awful things that happen to him.
The Jacket has largely been forgotten in the two decades since its release. But on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, we’re sharing some reasons why you should seek it out.
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It Has an Intriguing Premise
The Jacket can best be described as “Jacob’s Ladder meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” but it’s not as horrifying as the former. It’s closer to The Butterfly Effect than anything else because there is a time travel element in the plot that works in a way that’s similar to the Ashton Kutcher movie.
Jack (Brody) is a wounded army veteran who is imprisoned for a murder he didn’t commit. As part of his therapy, he’s subjected to experimental drugs and an extra-tight straitjacket. The disturbing part of that is the way Jack is also forced to lie down in a morgue drawer for hours at a time. Creepy!
It’s inhumane, and yet it’s also Jack’s temporary ticket out of the hospital. When Jack is subjected to this torturous treatment, he seems to physically appear in the future and he’s able to interact with the other people he meets there.
Brody’s Performance Is Terrific
One of the big reasons why Brody won two Oscars is that he’s able to externalize the suffering of his characters in a very convincing way. When Jack is trapped in the morgue, Brody’s tears of despair seem genuine. The pain and anguish he’s going through is written all over his face and body language.
Brody is also able to show off different sides of Jack’s personality when he’s not in the asylum. He’s never happier than when bonding with Jackie Price when she’s a young girl (Laura Marano) and in the future when she’s an adult (Keira Knightley). Somehow Jackie is the key to Jack’s flash-forwards in time and he makes it his mission to improve her future even though his time in the present is counting down to his demise.
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Keira Knightley and the Supporting Cast Shine as Well
Knightley doesn’t get as much screen time as Brody, but the film really is a lot more enjoyable whenever she’s a part of it. Without giving too much away, future Jackie does experience some changes to her life and her persona based on Jack’s actions in the past. Knightley doesn’t get the chance to fully develop all of those changes in her character, but she does play an important part in the film’s conclusion.
Daniel Craig has a small role as Rudy, one of the other inmates at the asylum with Jack. This was one of Craig’s pre-James Bond roles, and he’s largely unrecognizable in the part. He simply disappears in the character. Kris Kristofferson and Jennifer Jason Leigh also have strong turns as two of the doctors treating Jack, as does Kelly Lynch in her small part as Jackie’s mother, Jean.
A Bleak Journey With a Hopeful Ending
Brody’s presence is constant in all the movie’s time periods, but the audacious premise of the film wouldn’t have worked as well without all of these solid performers. Things look pretty bleak for most of the runtime, but the conclusion of The Jacket strikes a hopeful note thanks to the way Brody and Knightley relate to each other. And it’s the warmth of this ending that makes the movie stand out two decades after it was first released.
Buy The Jacket on Fandango.
