The first great film of 2008?

I’ve been looking forward to this movie for months, and have tried to keep a lid on my anticipation while the enthusiastic buzz increased to an electric hum the past several weeks. For the next few days I’ll be focusing on Stop Loss as (maybe) the first important release of the year — and hope to see some critics on Thursday who’ll back up my blind optimism. For now, the only reliable assurance comes from Pete Travers at Rolling Stone and his 3-and-a-half star review:

“Here’s the first major movie of the new year that touches greatness, and damn if there isn’t a curse hanging over it. Stop-Loss, directed with ferocity and feeling by Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry), is up against the war raging between audiences and films about Iraq.

“…Stop-Loss has the juice to break the jinx. The emotional battlefield on which Peirce paints her canvas strikes a universal chord that transcends politics and preaching. Peirce, who co-wrote the script with Mark Richard, takes us inside the minds and hearts of soldiers who enlisted after 9/11… Using fictional characters, Peirce decided to craft a film about the lives of soldiers and their families living in a ghost world created by questionable government policy.

“…None of this would work if Peirce hadn’t inspired her crew to push the envelope. Cinematographer Chris Menges, a poet of natural light, performs miracles of visual design. All the actors are exceptional. Phillippe (Flags of Our Fathers, Breach) is a dynamo, and indelibly moving when he catches Brandon in the act of discovering himself.”

It’ll be tough for me not to fawn over Kimberly Pierce this week, linking to stories about the challenges she overcame to get this movie made. A summary of the evolution of the project is here in The Washington Post, with an except after the cut. (We featured a preview here a few months ago, but it’s hard to find so I’ll repost the trailer on the next page too.)

While Peirce seems adamant about not criticizing the mission — she uses the word “patriot” to refer to any soldier who enlisted after 9/11, and her younger brother went to Iraq — the message of the movie is not exactly Rummy-esque. “Stop-loss,” originally a financial term, i.e., a brokerage order that keeps one’s account from hemorrhaging money, helps keep the U.S. military from hemorrhaging troops. What it means is extending a soldier’s enlistment beyond the terms of his contract.

” ‘Stop-Loss’ is a movie about guys who signed up after 9/11 for all the right reasons — protect your family, your home, your country,” she says. “And they have this experience that every soldier told me soldiers go through. It’s about protecting the soldier to your left, the soldier to your right, being willing to die for them and being challenged by the nature of this conflict, the nature of urban warfare. So many soldiers said to me, ‘They’re putting us in impossible circumstances.’ “

The WaPo piece touches on the thrill of the success of Boys Don’t Cry, and the subsequent difficulties encountered by a filmmaker who doesn’t fit the boy’s club template — and perhaps derives much of her strength from operating outside the mainstream to circumvent those roadblocks.

Ryan Philippe says Peirce’s personal involvement — the interviews she’d done, the research, the fact that her brother was there [in Iraq] — was essential to the success of the filming.

“Knowing it came from such a personal place for her, and having seen the research she did, and that she was going to these homecomings, and watching hours upon hours of soldier videos, all that passion, that was important to me,” he said.

He found it strange, however, when he realized she was the first female director he’d ever worked with.

“That is shocking,” Phillippe says, “because I’ve made about 30 films, and it’s a strange commentary on this business. We need more female writers and more voices, and that’s one thing I’ve been encouraging Kim about — don’t wait another nine years to make a film. People need to have that kind of inspiration she can provide.”

On the other hand, he says, gender had very little relevance in regards to making the film. “She’s tougher than a lot of the men I’ve worked with,” he says. “Tougher than Eastwood or Altman.”

One thing’s for sure, Eastwood and Pierce have diametrically opposite methods of guiding Hillary Swank to an Oscar winning performance. (And one of them doesn’t need to rely on melodramatic histrionics. The tough old pro vs. the rookie lesbian. Guess which one made the weepy manipulative soap-opera.)

Here’s the Stop Loss trailer, for anybody who’s had their TV unplugged for the past month:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmePzcsegk4&feature=related[/youtube]