Written by Old Bluffer 26th Oct 2009
[This is a decent film, and if you haven't read it and read on you will spoil it for yourself...]
Seven Pounds starts in enigmatic fashion. Who is Ben Thomas, why is he about to commit suicide, why does he have a list of people matching certain unknown criteria, why has he just been an utter bastard to some poor blind guy, and what does the title of the movie mean?
As the plot unfolds, we learn that Ben has lost his partner in an accident, and his life has been irrevocably ruined as a result.
Once he was a fabulously successful rocket engineer, but now he is seemingly working as an IRS auditor, and stalking people on a list that his best friend from childhood has reluctantly provided for him. He's also living in relative squalor, in a bedsit, with only his expensive tank of jellyfish as a reminder of the opulent lifestyle he used to enjoy.
The people on the list all have serious health conditions, and the constant drip feeding of clues eventually reveals the point of the film - Ben wants to kill himself and donate his organs to worthy people. That is why he has been stalking and interviewing them. He's not even called Ben, his name is Tim, and he is using his brother's IRS identity card as a cover.
We also learn that Ben / Tim is tormenting and punishing himself for good reason - he was responsible for the road accident that killed his fiancee and a minibus containing six other innocent victims. Being the man he is, Tim can't continue to live in a world where his negligence has destroyed so many lives, and when his brother needs a lung lobe the seed of his salvation is planted. He saves his brother's life, and then donates half of his liver to a kindly social worker. He then looks for five more lives that he believes will make the world a better place should they be saved.
To methodically recount all the interactions between Tim and his potential donor recipients would suck a lot of the joy out of the movie. Suffice to say, we feel a great deal of sympathy for all of the characters that Tim wants to help, and when the time comes for his suicide, it is a suitably bittersweet moment.
Tim has very carefully researched the best way to kill himself in order to provide the doctors with his organs in optimal condition.
Alone in his bedsit, he sits in a bath filled with ice, and then pours his pet box jellyfish into the tub with him. He even leaves a note out for the paramedics warning them not to touch the jellyfish!
The jellyfish do not mess about, and within seconds Ben is contorted in agony, and beyond resuscitation shorly afterwards. [Apparently in real life this would also riddle all of his organs with neurotoxin, but this is a movie, and it's a reasonable use of artistic license to make the jellyfish his means of suicide - OB]
Old Bluffer's Thoughts
This is a thoughtful and enjoyable "feel good" film that manages to avoid a large number of sickly sweet cliches that you'd expect in a Hollywood production. Will Smith is excellent, and in fact, there are no weak actors in the whole film.
If I was to give any criticism it would be that the option for Tim to reconsider his plan wasn't fully explored. His new found love only had a small chance of finding a donor without him, so he didn't really have much choice about killing himself if he wanted to save her life. Setting up more of a temptation to live a new life would have made for a bit more drama, and made his self-sacrifice even more emotional.
There are also the occasional lapses into a lazy script "Hi, it's me... ...your brother" - which are only jarring because the rest of the dialogue is more nuanced.
These are minor points though, as this really is a rather good piece of cinema.
I should note that I watched this on DVD with absolutely no pre-conceptions about any aspects of the plot or genre - I hadn't even seen a trailer. This undoubtedly made me enjoy the film a lot more than if I had already known the basic premise.