[yasr_overall_rating]
A group of U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq struggles to integrate back into family and civilian life while living with the memory of a war that threatens to destroy them long after they’ve left the battlefield.
I never served in the military but I have known many who did. Close friends, relatives, colleagues, work associates, some are still with us today, some are not. What I do know, and agree with wholeheartedly, is what General William Tecumseh Sherman once said, “War is hell!” That is it, plain and simple. The men and women who engage in warfare, see a lot of its devastation and sometimes, they have to be a part of it, either willingly or unwillingly, or both, on the receiving end, or the contributing end, or both. War is brutal and unforgiving and what “Thank You for Your Service” does is present the facts to you. They are not sugarcoated or mollified, they are given to you candidly and without prevarication.
Miles Teller plays Army Staff Sgt. Adam Schumann, a member of the 1st Infantry Division fighting the war on terror in Iraq in 2007. Having served three tours already, he is on his way home, along with two of his army buddies, Solo (Beulah Koale) and Will Waller (Joe Cole). Once they arrive back in the United States, they each go their separate ways but collectively, they begin to suffer from the effects of PTSD. When Will arrives home, he discovers that his fiancée and her little girl have packed up and left him. Solo’s girlfriend immediately wants a baby, and Adam settles back into a routine with his wife Saskia (Haley Bennett) and their two kids.
As the story progresses, each of the men gradually become more and more traumatized by the events they experienced in Iraq, and for Adam, his memory of a fellow comrade who died after taking his place on a route clearance mission, continues to haunt him. When Solo realizes that he is having terrible difficulty remembering the simplest of things, names, dates, etc., both he and Adam decide they need help and contact the Department of Veteran Affairs. Once there, however, they experience, firsthand, the neverending bureaucratic absurdity that has plagued the department for years.
They are given a timeline of nine months or more before they will be seen and as each day goes by, the men and their families try to live their lives the best they can. After a violent outburst in their apartment, Solo is arrested and after his release, and not being able to land a job, he gets mixed up with the wrong crowd and turns to guns and drugs. When Adam has a bloody and violent flashback to the events that led to him sitting out his route clearance mission, he decides to drive out of state to see the soldier whom he helped rescue, Michael Emory (Scott Haze), and to try and get some closure on that whole event, once and for all.
If there’s one gripe I have, it’s that film is constantly dreary, and the fact that when the men return home, it just happens to be to a poor town, with very little to offer and a lot of unemployment, which feels very clichéd. These elements, plus the fact that the men are suffering from PTSD, only seems to exacerbate their personal experiences and makes each of their long-term outlook on their lives, and their future, disheartening. While Adam’s wife Saskia tries to get him to open up to her about what happened, he wants to but can’t find the courage to do so. In one of the movie’s most poignant scenes, Saskia finds his paperwork from the Department of Veterans Affairs and while reading through the multitude of questions, some stick out more than others. “Do you feel suicidal?” “Do you wish you were dead?” When she reads his response to these questions and sees “sometimes,” she is beyond saddened and distressed over exactly what he saw and experienced during the war.
The cast overall, does excellent work. Miles Teller shines in the central role of Adam Schumann but Haley Bennett, as his longsuffering wife Saskia, shows a depth of emotions that transcends the silver screen and stays with you long after the film is over. You genuinely feel the turmoil in each character’s life and because of the severity of the affliction on each man, which gradually begins to affect their families, it makes you feel powerless that you can’t just reach out and help them. The movie is brutal and unflinching with some scenes being particularly disturbing during the conflict in Iraq but it is exactly these scenes, which you sometimes see in flashback, that are the main cause of distress for the men. Their realism and authenticity would be enough to cause anybody nightmares.
In theaters Friday, October 27th
