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Review: 21 Grams (2003)
A number of years ago, I watched Amores Perros and it absolutely blew me away. Knowing that this was the second movie in a trilogy directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, I had really high expectations for this movie.
I was not disappointed. The story was tight, and unfolded in a way that kept me interested at all times. There were several narrative themes and motifs throughout the story that also kept me thinking. The cast was also stacked, so no complaints there. I would definitely recommend this movie, especially if you enjoyed Amores perros.
Spoilers.
Story
The story was structured in a way that was similar to Amores perros. There were technically three main stories, but they interwove with one another. The connecting story is as follows. Jack drove into Michael, Katie, and Laura, and killed them. Cristina agreed to give up Michael's heart to organ donation. Paul received Michael's heart, and later he and Cristina fell in love. The two of them sought revenge on Jack but Paul had let him go. Paul came back because he did want to atone but in the scuffle, Paul shot himself. Jack drove them to the hospital and turned himself in as the person who shot Paul but his story didn't hold up so he was let go by the police. Paul ended up succumbing to his gunshot wound. Cristina decided to carry Paul's baby.
I'll expand in the Themes section below, but there were several themes that overlapped between the three main characters that showed us their differences and how they coped in life.
Like Amores perros, I didn't necessarily relate to any of the characters, but I found that I'd come to understand them so much and felt a sort of connection with them because of what we saw them go through during the movie.
Writing
The story was presented in a non-chronological manner, which was confusing at first, but it eventually unfolded in a way that made sense.
The various scenes were also presented in a way that paced the movie well.
Production
I felt that the movie looked a bit "grainy," even for an older movie (from 2003). I saw on the Wikipedia page that the film crew had used shots from hand-held cameras, so I guess they intended for that type of look. I found with the grainier quality, I felt like I was watching a huge flashback, or a dream. It really helped to put me in the perspective of the various characters.
Another paragraph on the Wikipedia page also said that each character's story was filmed with different colour palettes. I didn't notice this, but the next time I do watch this movie I think I'll keep that in mind.
Characters
Jack Jordan
Jack was a man who'd been in an out of jail many times, and had recently become a very religious man in order to get himself on track. We saw him preaching to a teenager to stop him from getting into trouble.
Jack was a believer that everything in his life was predestined by God. He said that he'd won the car in the raffle because Jesus gave it to him. However, Jack's overreliance on religion to explain his life turned into a problem when he was struggling with his hit-and-run. When he spoke with the Reverend, he was frustrated that Jesus had given him the car, and made him crash the car, but didn't give him the strength to stay and help the victims, which the Reverend said was blasphemy. Obviously from this point of view, Jack was putting too much trust in religion and probably not using it in a way that was healthy.
That being said, Jack still held a huge amount of guilt for crashing into the family. While he was struggling with his faith, he did accept that he'd done something wrong and the Peck family didn't deserve what he'd done to them. That was why he didn't really want to get out of jail, and was angry when Marianne sold the truck to hire them a lawyer to get him out. Jack also made no attempts to hide the fact that he was a murderer from his children, as he believed he needed to live with that label.
At the end of the movie, Jack saw an opportunity to atone by telling the police that he'd shot Paul, which would land him in prison. However, the evidence didn't match up and he was let go. He returned to his family, but obviously, he didn't feel good about it.
I think Jack's personal story was about (1) free will vs. fate and (2) atonement.
Marianne Jordan
Marianne was Jack's wife, with whom she had two children. She didn't want Jack to be in prison because then he'd be away from his kids. This was a point of conflict between the couple as he was angry when he got out of prison because Marianne had hired the lawyer.
Cristina Peck
Cristina was a former drug addict but was on a path to recovery and living happily with her husband Michael and two daughters Katie and Laura. The three of them were killed when Jack crashed into them.
Afterwards, we watched how Cristina attempted to recover from her grief. She struggled to move on with her life as three of her most loved ones were no longer here.
Paul inserted himself into Cristina's life. At first I think it was more out of curiosity, but he came to care for her. As for Cristina, I think she appreciated his attempt to comfort her. I don't know that she loved Paul the same way that she loved Michael, but it's clear that she at least cared for him.
At the end of the movie, Paul was dead, but Cristina had his baby. I think it's implied that she was going to go through with having the baby. Perhaps it was Paul's gift to her. Seeing as how Cristina had a tough time moving ahead without her family with her, Paul left her with another chance to start a new family. What's also interesting is that Cristina was in a situation that Mary would've wanted to be in. Before Paul had his heart transplant, Mary just wanted to have his baby, even if he was going to die. That is exactly what happened to Cristina, but it's clear that Cristina had a different view towards having kids than Mary did.
Paul Rivers
Paul was a mathematiciam who was suffering from heart failure. He was also having marital problems with his wife Mary. Paul had kind of resigned himself to the fact that he probably wasn't going to make it, and Mary's obsession with having a baby was getting on his nerves.
After he got his heart transplant, it riled up Paul even more because now it seemed like Mary was actually going to get a shot at what she wanted, which was a baby. Paul definitely did not see him and his wife as fit parents.
When Paul received Michael's heart, it was like he gained a new sense of purpose. He sought out Cristina and wanted to help her somehow. He built a connection with her that he'd long lost with Mary.
Later in the story, we were shown that Paul perhaps wasn't particularly compatible with Michael's heart. However, he showed no issue with dying with this heart. I think that Paul enjoyed this new purpose in life that he'd been given with Michael's heart.
In the end, Paul shot himself. I think he did so because he saw that Cristina was getting the revenge that she wanted by beating Jack (thus completing his mission of helping Cristina).
Mary Rivers
Mary was Paul's wife, and she was obsessed with having a child. We saw how desperate she was before Paul received his heart transplant. He only had a month to live and she was still trying all sorts of fertility treatments. Paul was concerned because obviously he wouldn't be around to care for the child but Mary insisted she could do all of the work. This is ironic because Paul had a caretaker when he was ill, because Mary found it tiring taking care of him.
After Paul received his new heart, it felt like a new beginning to Mary. She felt that having a baby could renew their relationship, which, as we know, never works.
To me, Mary seemed like a person absolutely obsessed with appearances. After the party, she was talking about how fat one of their friends had been, despite later calling the group their "best friends" (i.e. she probably talks shit about her best friends a lot). I think one of the reasons she wanted a kid was to show that she had a normal and loving relationship with her husband. She had made up her mind that she would have Paul's baby, even if against his will, which is pretty scary.
Paul had disappeared for a few days when he was comforting Cristina, and that was apparently the last straw for Mary. As Paul had already signed the papers for artificial insemination, she was going to have his child. At this point, I'm still trying to figure out what she wanted to have the child that much, but I suppose she thought it would help with the loneliness, seeing as how Paul felt that she'd only returned to be with him because she'd felt lonely.
I didn't think that Mary cared for Paul's wellbeing at all. Near the beginning of the movie, she said that it was better if he was nuts than dead, which was obviously not in line with Paul's thinking.
Themes
Children
Jack had a tough love approach to parenting. When his son had hit his daughter, he taught his daughter how to handle the pain, which did not sit well with Marianne. He did also discipline the son, but it's clear that his parenting style was not popular.
We could also see some of Jack's parenting style when he was speaking with the teenager. He was very sure of his words, that God and Jesus would guide him in the right way, but he'd never considered that bad things happen to good people. When he ended up in jail for killing Michael, Laura, and Katie, obviously it made him look like a huge hypocrite.
Cris had a very happy life with her daughters. She was a struggling drug addict, but the love of her husband and daughters helped her through.
Paul and Mary had very different views on children. Paul didn't want kids at all, seeing as how he was ill and wouldn't be around to care for them. On the other hand, Mary seemed to desperately want a child as a status symbol or a symbol of the love that she and Paul clearly no longer shared.
Soul
The title 21 grams came from a study that attempted to prove that the soul weighed 21 grams. There were times in the movie when it really did feel like souls had a physical form.
When Paul received Michael's heart, he might also have received Michael's love for Cristina which pushed him to want to help Cristina.
When Cristina's family died, she felt that a part of her soul had left, as she was unable to move on in life.
Fate
Jack was a huge proponent that things were going to work out if you believed in God and Jesus. This theory worked when he was trying to work himself out of a rut, and he was making improvements in his life.
However, this theory was harder to live by when life wasn't going so well. For example, he was fired from his job because of his tattoos. And of course, he felt that Jesus had wanted him to crash into the people, but had purposely not given him the strength to stay and help them.
In one of the conversations between Cristina and Paul, Paul tried to explain to Cristina how numbers came together to make things happen. He felt that the numbers had come together so that they could meet and so that he could help him. So I think that Paul also believed in there being a higher power. I think that was also why he wasn't so concerned with his own health. He felt that it was better to live a full life and fulfilling his potential within that lifetime than to keep living on borrowed time.
Purpose
The characters in this movie struggled between a duty to justice and greater good, and a duty to family and other people.
Marianne commented that Jack was a different person after he became religious. He turned himself in after crashing into the Peck family because it was the right thing to do, even if it meant his wife and kids would be without his support for all those years. Whether or not Jesus had intended for that to happen, all sins had to be punished and he was willing to atone for it. That was why he was angry when Marianne had gotten him out of jail, and why he was so intent on going back to jail by saying that he shot Paul.
I think that Cristina's purpose was with her family. Their love encouraged her to get help with her drug addiction. So when Michael, Laura, and Katie all died, she had trouble moving on. Her father had told her that life would move on, but it was not something she was ready to do yet, precisely because all of them were gone. If Laura had made it, I think Cristina would have had a better time moving on, but since she hadn't, Cristina was paralyzed, as she said in her own words. After Paul died, he'd left her with a child. I think this was kind of a gift to her, a way in which she could move forward again because she always relied so much on family. Before, she was unable to enter her daughters' rooms, but at the end of the movie, we saw that she'd built up the courage to go into one of them, in anticipation of having her new baby.
I think Paul had a similar mindset to Jack, in that he liked to leave things up to fate. He'd been in several near death experiences (from heart failure and then being shot) and he had a pretty nonchalant attitude about life. As a scientist/mathematician, I think he was more thoughtful and curious about death than afraid of it. Anyway, he didn't really seem to have much of a purpose with his old heart.
After he received Michael's heart, I think he felt that he owed it to the Peck family to help Cristina with whatever she needed. Mary had said that she thought Paul would've changed with the new heart. Honestly, I think he did change. It's just that he didn't change in the way that she wanted. She thought that he would come back to him, but really, Paul just became more focused on his new purpose. Paul ended up supporting Cristina. emotionally and also with her revenge. Since he'd succeeded, I think that was why he decided it was time to kill himself.
Continuing life
Marianne told Jack that life had to go on with or without God. Whether or not Jack could reason out what had happened to him, the truth was that his family needed support. However, this didn't mean anything to Jack as we saw that he continued to try to atone for his actions. And he probably wasn't very happy about returning to his family as he felt that he wasn't continuing life in a way that was appropriate.
Cristina literally said she was stuck and paralyzed in her position as she had no direction after Michael, Katie, and Laura died. Her father insisted it was possible, but when her mother died, he still had two daughters. At the end, Cristina received another chance to continue life thanks to Paul. So I think she will be thankful to him for that, regardless of whether her feelings for him were romantic, platonic, or solely of gratitude.
Paul didn't really have any more reason to move on with life. If he was co-parenting with Mary, I think he would've felt differently, but it was clear that Mary no longer wanted anything to do with him. So he felt that as long as he'd answered his calling by helping Cristina, he was good to go, and he did so.
Atonement
Jack seriously wanted to atone, and he tried several times to do so, even if it meant abandoning his family.
Cristina was atoning for something that she didn't even cause. Her family had died through no fault of her own, and she was grieving enormously over it.
I think Paul trying to help Cristina could've been him trying to fix a marriage because he couldn't fix his own. But that is me stretching it a bit.
Death
At the end of the movie, Paul talked about how people weighed a little less after their death, implying that the soul was worth 21 grams.
It could also be argued that each of the three main characters had already died in the movie before they actually reached their physical death.
Jack had converted to Christianity a few years ago. Many of these converts are called "born-again Christians," which I think can symbolize the fact that Jack felt his old self had died and that he was a new man now.
As mentioned above, I truly felt that a part of Cristina died with her family because she relied on them so much for her purpose in life.
As for Paul, I think he'd technically died once when he had his heart transplant.
Religion
A lot of the names of the characters in the movie were biblical in nature. Jack was the short form of John, Marianne was a dimunitive of Mary, Cristina was a dimutive of Christ, and Michael, Paul, and Mary are all a bit self-explanatory. However, I don't have enough biblical knowledge to know if these figures had special relationships that would parallel the relationships in the movie.
I think the concepts of atonement, meaning of life, souls, etc. are all very spiritual in nature though, and are closely tied to religion.
Overall
I thought this was a very interesting movie with three interesting characters to follow. Like Amores perros, I enjoyed that the three characters had stories that were interwoven with one another. And I really enjoyed how rich the story was in terms of narrative themes and motifs. I would totally recommend this movie to film buffs.
I was not disappointed. The story was tight, and unfolded in a way that kept me interested at all times. There were several narrative themes and motifs throughout the story that also kept me thinking. The cast was also stacked, so no complaints there. I would definitely recommend this movie, especially if you enjoyed Amores perros.
Spoilers.
Story
The story was structured in a way that was similar to Amores perros. There were technically three main stories, but they interwove with one another. The connecting story is as follows. Jack drove into Michael, Katie, and Laura, and killed them. Cristina agreed to give up Michael's heart to organ donation. Paul received Michael's heart, and later he and Cristina fell in love. The two of them sought revenge on Jack but Paul had let him go. Paul came back because he did want to atone but in the scuffle, Paul shot himself. Jack drove them to the hospital and turned himself in as the person who shot Paul but his story didn't hold up so he was let go by the police. Paul ended up succumbing to his gunshot wound. Cristina decided to carry Paul's baby.
I'll expand in the Themes section below, but there were several themes that overlapped between the three main characters that showed us their differences and how they coped in life.
Like Amores perros, I didn't necessarily relate to any of the characters, but I found that I'd come to understand them so much and felt a sort of connection with them because of what we saw them go through during the movie.
Writing
The story was presented in a non-chronological manner, which was confusing at first, but it eventually unfolded in a way that made sense.
The various scenes were also presented in a way that paced the movie well.
Production
I felt that the movie looked a bit "grainy," even for an older movie (from 2003). I saw on the Wikipedia page that the film crew had used shots from hand-held cameras, so I guess they intended for that type of look. I found with the grainier quality, I felt like I was watching a huge flashback, or a dream. It really helped to put me in the perspective of the various characters.
Another paragraph on the Wikipedia page also said that each character's story was filmed with different colour palettes. I didn't notice this, but the next time I do watch this movie I think I'll keep that in mind.
Characters
Jack Jordan
Jack was a man who'd been in an out of jail many times, and had recently become a very religious man in order to get himself on track. We saw him preaching to a teenager to stop him from getting into trouble.
Jack was a believer that everything in his life was predestined by God. He said that he'd won the car in the raffle because Jesus gave it to him. However, Jack's overreliance on religion to explain his life turned into a problem when he was struggling with his hit-and-run. When he spoke with the Reverend, he was frustrated that Jesus had given him the car, and made him crash the car, but didn't give him the strength to stay and help the victims, which the Reverend said was blasphemy. Obviously from this point of view, Jack was putting too much trust in religion and probably not using it in a way that was healthy.
That being said, Jack still held a huge amount of guilt for crashing into the family. While he was struggling with his faith, he did accept that he'd done something wrong and the Peck family didn't deserve what he'd done to them. That was why he didn't really want to get out of jail, and was angry when Marianne sold the truck to hire them a lawyer to get him out. Jack also made no attempts to hide the fact that he was a murderer from his children, as he believed he needed to live with that label.
At the end of the movie, Jack saw an opportunity to atone by telling the police that he'd shot Paul, which would land him in prison. However, the evidence didn't match up and he was let go. He returned to his family, but obviously, he didn't feel good about it.
I think Jack's personal story was about (1) free will vs. fate and (2) atonement.
Marianne Jordan
Marianne was Jack's wife, with whom she had two children. She didn't want Jack to be in prison because then he'd be away from his kids. This was a point of conflict between the couple as he was angry when he got out of prison because Marianne had hired the lawyer.
Cristina Peck
Cristina was a former drug addict but was on a path to recovery and living happily with her husband Michael and two daughters Katie and Laura. The three of them were killed when Jack crashed into them.
Afterwards, we watched how Cristina attempted to recover from her grief. She struggled to move on with her life as three of her most loved ones were no longer here.
Paul inserted himself into Cristina's life. At first I think it was more out of curiosity, but he came to care for her. As for Cristina, I think she appreciated his attempt to comfort her. I don't know that she loved Paul the same way that she loved Michael, but it's clear that she at least cared for him.
At the end of the movie, Paul was dead, but Cristina had his baby. I think it's implied that she was going to go through with having the baby. Perhaps it was Paul's gift to her. Seeing as how Cristina had a tough time moving ahead without her family with her, Paul left her with another chance to start a new family. What's also interesting is that Cristina was in a situation that Mary would've wanted to be in. Before Paul had his heart transplant, Mary just wanted to have his baby, even if he was going to die. That is exactly what happened to Cristina, but it's clear that Cristina had a different view towards having kids than Mary did.
Paul Rivers
Paul was a mathematiciam who was suffering from heart failure. He was also having marital problems with his wife Mary. Paul had kind of resigned himself to the fact that he probably wasn't going to make it, and Mary's obsession with having a baby was getting on his nerves.
After he got his heart transplant, it riled up Paul even more because now it seemed like Mary was actually going to get a shot at what she wanted, which was a baby. Paul definitely did not see him and his wife as fit parents.
When Paul received Michael's heart, it was like he gained a new sense of purpose. He sought out Cristina and wanted to help her somehow. He built a connection with her that he'd long lost with Mary.
Later in the story, we were shown that Paul perhaps wasn't particularly compatible with Michael's heart. However, he showed no issue with dying with this heart. I think that Paul enjoyed this new purpose in life that he'd been given with Michael's heart.
In the end, Paul shot himself. I think he did so because he saw that Cristina was getting the revenge that she wanted by beating Jack (thus completing his mission of helping Cristina).
Mary Rivers
Mary was Paul's wife, and she was obsessed with having a child. We saw how desperate she was before Paul received his heart transplant. He only had a month to live and she was still trying all sorts of fertility treatments. Paul was concerned because obviously he wouldn't be around to care for the child but Mary insisted she could do all of the work. This is ironic because Paul had a caretaker when he was ill, because Mary found it tiring taking care of him.
After Paul received his new heart, it felt like a new beginning to Mary. She felt that having a baby could renew their relationship, which, as we know, never works.
To me, Mary seemed like a person absolutely obsessed with appearances. After the party, she was talking about how fat one of their friends had been, despite later calling the group their "best friends" (i.e. she probably talks shit about her best friends a lot). I think one of the reasons she wanted a kid was to show that she had a normal and loving relationship with her husband. She had made up her mind that she would have Paul's baby, even if against his will, which is pretty scary.
Paul had disappeared for a few days when he was comforting Cristina, and that was apparently the last straw for Mary. As Paul had already signed the papers for artificial insemination, she was going to have his child. At this point, I'm still trying to figure out what she wanted to have the child that much, but I suppose she thought it would help with the loneliness, seeing as how Paul felt that she'd only returned to be with him because she'd felt lonely.
I didn't think that Mary cared for Paul's wellbeing at all. Near the beginning of the movie, she said that it was better if he was nuts than dead, which was obviously not in line with Paul's thinking.
Themes
Children
Jack had a tough love approach to parenting. When his son had hit his daughter, he taught his daughter how to handle the pain, which did not sit well with Marianne. He did also discipline the son, but it's clear that his parenting style was not popular.
We could also see some of Jack's parenting style when he was speaking with the teenager. He was very sure of his words, that God and Jesus would guide him in the right way, but he'd never considered that bad things happen to good people. When he ended up in jail for killing Michael, Laura, and Katie, obviously it made him look like a huge hypocrite.
Cris had a very happy life with her daughters. She was a struggling drug addict, but the love of her husband and daughters helped her through.
Paul and Mary had very different views on children. Paul didn't want kids at all, seeing as how he was ill and wouldn't be around to care for them. On the other hand, Mary seemed to desperately want a child as a status symbol or a symbol of the love that she and Paul clearly no longer shared.
Soul
The title 21 grams came from a study that attempted to prove that the soul weighed 21 grams. There were times in the movie when it really did feel like souls had a physical form.
When Paul received Michael's heart, he might also have received Michael's love for Cristina which pushed him to want to help Cristina.
When Cristina's family died, she felt that a part of her soul had left, as she was unable to move on in life.
Fate
Jack was a huge proponent that things were going to work out if you believed in God and Jesus. This theory worked when he was trying to work himself out of a rut, and he was making improvements in his life.
However, this theory was harder to live by when life wasn't going so well. For example, he was fired from his job because of his tattoos. And of course, he felt that Jesus had wanted him to crash into the people, but had purposely not given him the strength to stay and help them.
In one of the conversations between Cristina and Paul, Paul tried to explain to Cristina how numbers came together to make things happen. He felt that the numbers had come together so that they could meet and so that he could help him. So I think that Paul also believed in there being a higher power. I think that was also why he wasn't so concerned with his own health. He felt that it was better to live a full life and fulfilling his potential within that lifetime than to keep living on borrowed time.
Purpose
The characters in this movie struggled between a duty to justice and greater good, and a duty to family and other people.
Marianne commented that Jack was a different person after he became religious. He turned himself in after crashing into the Peck family because it was the right thing to do, even if it meant his wife and kids would be without his support for all those years. Whether or not Jesus had intended for that to happen, all sins had to be punished and he was willing to atone for it. That was why he was angry when Marianne had gotten him out of jail, and why he was so intent on going back to jail by saying that he shot Paul.
I think that Cristina's purpose was with her family. Their love encouraged her to get help with her drug addiction. So when Michael, Laura, and Katie all died, she had trouble moving on. Her father had told her that life would move on, but it was not something she was ready to do yet, precisely because all of them were gone. If Laura had made it, I think Cristina would have had a better time moving on, but since she hadn't, Cristina was paralyzed, as she said in her own words. After Paul died, he'd left her with a child. I think this was kind of a gift to her, a way in which she could move forward again because she always relied so much on family. Before, she was unable to enter her daughters' rooms, but at the end of the movie, we saw that she'd built up the courage to go into one of them, in anticipation of having her new baby.
I think Paul had a similar mindset to Jack, in that he liked to leave things up to fate. He'd been in several near death experiences (from heart failure and then being shot) and he had a pretty nonchalant attitude about life. As a scientist/mathematician, I think he was more thoughtful and curious about death than afraid of it. Anyway, he didn't really seem to have much of a purpose with his old heart.
After he received Michael's heart, I think he felt that he owed it to the Peck family to help Cristina with whatever she needed. Mary had said that she thought Paul would've changed with the new heart. Honestly, I think he did change. It's just that he didn't change in the way that she wanted. She thought that he would come back to him, but really, Paul just became more focused on his new purpose. Paul ended up supporting Cristina. emotionally and also with her revenge. Since he'd succeeded, I think that was why he decided it was time to kill himself.
Continuing life
Marianne told Jack that life had to go on with or without God. Whether or not Jack could reason out what had happened to him, the truth was that his family needed support. However, this didn't mean anything to Jack as we saw that he continued to try to atone for his actions. And he probably wasn't very happy about returning to his family as he felt that he wasn't continuing life in a way that was appropriate.
Cristina literally said she was stuck and paralyzed in her position as she had no direction after Michael, Katie, and Laura died. Her father insisted it was possible, but when her mother died, he still had two daughters. At the end, Cristina received another chance to continue life thanks to Paul. So I think she will be thankful to him for that, regardless of whether her feelings for him were romantic, platonic, or solely of gratitude.
Paul didn't really have any more reason to move on with life. If he was co-parenting with Mary, I think he would've felt differently, but it was clear that Mary no longer wanted anything to do with him. So he felt that as long as he'd answered his calling by helping Cristina, he was good to go, and he did so.
Atonement
Jack seriously wanted to atone, and he tried several times to do so, even if it meant abandoning his family.
Cristina was atoning for something that she didn't even cause. Her family had died through no fault of her own, and she was grieving enormously over it.
I think Paul trying to help Cristina could've been him trying to fix a marriage because he couldn't fix his own. But that is me stretching it a bit.
Death
At the end of the movie, Paul talked about how people weighed a little less after their death, implying that the soul was worth 21 grams.
It could also be argued that each of the three main characters had already died in the movie before they actually reached their physical death.
Jack had converted to Christianity a few years ago. Many of these converts are called "born-again Christians," which I think can symbolize the fact that Jack felt his old self had died and that he was a new man now.
As mentioned above, I truly felt that a part of Cristina died with her family because she relied on them so much for her purpose in life.
As for Paul, I think he'd technically died once when he had his heart transplant.
Religion
A lot of the names of the characters in the movie were biblical in nature. Jack was the short form of John, Marianne was a dimunitive of Mary, Cristina was a dimutive of Christ, and Michael, Paul, and Mary are all a bit self-explanatory. However, I don't have enough biblical knowledge to know if these figures had special relationships that would parallel the relationships in the movie.
I think the concepts of atonement, meaning of life, souls, etc. are all very spiritual in nature though, and are closely tied to religion.
Overall
I thought this was a very interesting movie with three interesting characters to follow. Like Amores perros, I enjoyed that the three characters had stories that were interwoven with one another. And I really enjoyed how rich the story was in terms of narrative themes and motifs. I would totally recommend this movie to film buffs.