The Burning Plain

Philosophers call it the “substratum,” and chefs call it “umami,” but the universal word for it is “subtlety.” It’s that Mona-Lisa-smile component that separates the merely good from the eternally memorable. Thousands of people have tried to describe it, but to little—if any—avail.

And so the movie “The Burning Plain,” written and directed by the Mexican screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, is the latest work to remind us that art and alchemy are not so different. At the risk of seeming to gush, no description will do the film justice. In both script and direction, Arriaga reaches for many familiar ingredients. But the result this time is different.

You’ll recognize the Arriaga style from his previous films “Babel,” “21 Grams,” and “Amores Perros,” all directed by Arriaga’s close collaborator Alejandro González Iñárritu. Each concerns a group of strangers connected by life-shattering catastrophe, their fragmented lives eventually drawn together under one sweeping narrative.

While Arriaga’s films have always impressed, Iñárritu’s direction set them spinning at a frenetic pace with only their own centrifugal force seeming to hold them together. Directing his own work for the first time, Arriaga reveals a stillness at the center of “The Burning Plain” that one wishes had appeared in his earlier work. For any director to make sense of one of Arriaga’s screenplays is remarkable, but for a first-timer to create a film of such elegance shows preternatural directorial insight.

No actress in Hollywood better embodies stillness and frenzy than Charlize Theron, the bombshell whose statuesque grace has been the X-factor in films from “The Cider House Rules” to “Monster.” Arriaga conceived of the movie with Theron in mind, and told Vogue’s Kevin Conley that he did so because “she can act to silence.” Theron plays Sylvia, whose physical and emotional scars are the keystone to a multigenerational arc of love, betrayal, and loss.

As in “Babel,” this arc spans multiple countries as well, straddling the border between Texas and Mexico and leaping up to the coal-gray coast of Oregon. “Babel” was a story of alienation, but no matter how far apart “The Burning Plain” flings its characters, none ever lands beyond redemption. Scars appear frequently in the film as indelible reminders of both trauma and happiness; either way, the past is always present. A full list of the many symbols Arriaga employs would indicate the work of a ham-handed artiste and a precocious directorial newcomer. But his recurring images are more reminders for the attentive viewer than the tools of the director’s agenda.

Admittedly, the direction is not perfect. The story only begins to cohere around the 40-minute mark, helped along by the introduction of Jennifer Lawrence as Mariana, a teen whose mother’s affair forces her to grow up too fast. Lawrence has already received the Marcello Mastroianni Award for emerging actors at the Venice Film Festival—an honor previously given to fellow Arriaga actor Gael García Bernal—which her bracing performance richly deserves.

Although uniformly believable, the remaining cast does not reach Theron’s or Lawrence’s level. As the guilty mother, Kim Basinger is so shakingly fragile that she comes dangerously close to over-acting, which is frustrating given the subtlety of the rest of the film. J.D. Pardo is effective but one-dimensional as the son of Basinger’s paramour, and José María Yazpik is intriguing in a small role performed entirely in Spanish.

To attempt to elaborate any more of the characters, plot, themes, or images would be both futile and unfair, as any intelligible explanation would also spoil the ending. Only one thing is apparent from almost beginning to end: Oscar season has arrived.

—Staff writer Jillian J. Goodman can be reached at jjgoodm@fas.harvard.edu.