MOVIE · 2009

The Messenger

DramaRomanceWar113 min

Ben Foster is Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery, back from Iraq and assigned to the Army unit that notifies families when soldiers have been killed. Partnered with Captain Tony Stone, a hard-edged officer brought into sharp focus by Woody Harrelson, Will spends his days delivering the worst news imaginable at strangers’ doors. The work leaves little distance between military procedure and private grief, especially after he finds himself drawn to Olivia Pitterson (Samantha Morton), a woman he has just informed of her husband’s death. As Will tries to settle back into civilian life, each notification pulls him deeper into the lives shattered by the war he survived.