THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE (Jason Hall). 108 minutes. Opens Friday (October 27). See listing. Rating: NNNN
“From the writer of American Sniper.”
Those words, on the poster and in the trailer for Jason Hall’s PTSD drama Thank You For Your Service, had my guard up – way up. That and the sight of obnoxiously talented Miles Teller. Both films are about soldiers having an impossible time adjusting to the soil they were purportedly protecting while in Iraq.
American Sniper, scratched together by Clint Eastwood, was a muddled mix of anti-war sentiment and the thrill of a kill count. It also had a rubber baby.
Thank You For Your Service on the other hand has real babies. It’s also a really affecting coming-home narrative that broke my cynicism within 20 minutes.
I’d like to believe screenwriter/director Jason Hall felt American Sniper was lousy, too, and immediately got to work on Thank You For Your Service as a corrective, this time owning the directorial duties himself. He manages the tricky balancing act, reiterating how terrible war is with characters who demand more empathy, respect and support than we and the U.S. military are equipped to give.
Miles Teller, Beulah Koale and Joe Cole are all terrific as veterans altered by war and traumatized by a specific incident, trying to settle in to rudimentary business-as-usual on home turf. But nothing is rudimentary for Hall, whose smart and moving screenplay finds drama in mundane moments where the men make breakfast, stand in lines for veteran benefits, navigate bureaucracy and try to sort out their turmoil through frank, often impolite conversations.
This is the rare film about veterans who recognize their own PTSD and are actively trying to get better through camaraderie. At times, it feels earnest, but it also never trivializes the difficulty.
These guys talk plenty and still struggle to communicate.The war itself is barely seen. Hall, taking cues from his characters, tries to bury it, only depicting moments that are key to discussing trauma. As a result, there is no incidental thrill or heroic posturing via combat footage. Thank You For Your Service sees heroism in daily life.
