Brothers

Best picture chances

Sheridan has a knack of making intense character dramas that catch fire with Academy voters. My Left Foot (1989) and In The Name Of The Father (1993) were both best picture nominees and The Field and In America scored major nominations. Brothers has all the ingredients of another Oscar player and that could easily include a best picture nomination.

What Screen said

“Brothers is that rare animal, a US remake of a fine foreign-language film which works on both a creative and thematic level in its conversion to a US setting. Susanne Bier’s explosive 2004 film is effectively re-imagined by writer David Benioff and director Jim Sheridan, and their Brothers is tight, tense and emotional, addressing the issue of soldiers returning from the war in Afghanistan in the context of an expertly told melodrama.

Bier and her co-writer Anders Thomas Jensen specialise in setting up excruciating moral dilemmas, which sometimes veer on contrivance, yet deliver searing portraits of human behaviour. Sheridan and Benioff remain faithful to this ethos, while developing an authentic fresh milieu in a US military town and a set of newly drawn characters to play out the story.”

Mike Goodridge