21 Grams is a 2003 American crime thriller film co-produced and directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and written by Guillermo Arriaga.

[3] The film stars Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Danny Huston and Benicio Del Toro.

The second part of Arriaga's and Iñárritu's "Trilogy of Death", preceded by Amores perros (2000) and followed by Babel (2006),[4] 21 Grams interweaves several plot lines in a nonlinear arrangement.

Critics gave the film generally favorable reviews, praising Iñárritu's direction, Arriaga's screenplay, and Watts' and Del Toro's performances.

The following is a chronological summary of the plot: Jack Jordan is a former convict who is using his new-found religious faith to recover from drug addiction and alcoholism.

Paul is eager to begin normal life again, but he hesitantly agrees to his wife's idea of artificial insemination as a last-ditch effort to get pregnant.

When Jack is released, he is unable to reincorporate himself into normal family life, and instead leaves home to live as a transient, working as a manual laborer.

Still believing he deserves to be punished for his hit-and-run, Jack tells the police that he was the one who shot Paul, but is released when his story cannot be confirmed.

The distinctive stylistic elements of the film's cinematography are its gritty, hand-held shots, the extensive use of the bleach bypass process, and the use of color casts.

In an interview on American Cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto pointed out that "there were cues [in the script] to help you understand where you were in the chronology of each story, but I felt we should [have supported] that visually."

Thorough experimentation had been necessary to understand how to achieve the desired effects with color palettes, lighting and wardrobe, and how each of these elements interacted with the bleach bypass process.

Both Iñárritu and Prieto wanted to accomplish a spontaneous, instinctive, yet transparent camerawork "to create the feeling that the camera was present with the actors, moving, reacting and breathing with them".

The critical consensus states that "Alejandro González Iñárritu deftly weaves an uncommonly structured narrative with panache in 21 Grams, a stylish, haunting drama full of fine performances.

"[7] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

"[9] Elvis Mitchell also praised the acting and called the film "an extraordinarily satisfying vision" that "may well be the crowning work of this year.