ADJUSTING TO LOSS (WORTH)

 

Being asked to put a monetary value on a life cut short by violence is a thankless task.

The scale of just how thankless that task is is the subject of Sara Colangelo's Netflix film 'Worth'.

But that is exactly what attorney Ken Feinberg tried to do when he volunteered to come up with a formula to compensate the relatives of victims of 9/11.

'Worth' examines the torturous process that eventually saw $7.3 billion distributed under the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund to over 95% of victims' loved ones.

It is a hugely emotional film about grief, empathy and handling corporate legal sharks.

However the film is at its most illuminating when it confronts the complexities that some victims' lives presented Feinberg's team.

At the start of Colangelo's feature, Michael Keaton's Feinberg is delivering a lecture in which he gives students a scenario about the value of a life lost.

The hypothetical situation he creates shows how tricky it is and sets the tone for what is to come. 

It isn't long afterwards that 9/11 happens and Feinberg is receiving a phone call from President George W Bush after volunteering for and securing the role of Special Master of the Victims Compensation Fund.

Feinberg's task is to come up with a formula that will convince at least 80% of victims' families to sign up.

He assembles a team that includes Amy Ryan's Camille Biros and Shunori Ramanthan's Priya Khundi to take on the challenge.

However he is also faced with a myriad of responses from victims' families and their advocates - some of whom are angry and are experiencing raw grief.

At a public meeting to explain the process, he is interrupted by relatives - most of whom are either cynical about the process or angry.

He also comes across Stanley Tucci's Charles Wolf whose wife has died in the attacks.

Wolf insists on the hostile audience letting Feinberg speak but bluntly tells him afterwards he has no faith in the process and will fight it.

Feinberg is an advocate of objectivity if he is to come up with estimates that are fair to all but Colangelo and her writer Max Borenstein probe whether objectivity really is possible when faced with scores of grieving families following a terror attack.

As Biros, Khundi and inevitably Feinberg start to meet victims' relatives and get to know certain families, they are confronted with heartbreaking and often complex tales about those who died.

After driving for two hours and arriving at Feinberg's office as it closes, Laura Benanti's Karen Donato persuades him to listen to her case. 

She speaks lovingly to him about her fireman husband but then proceeds to tell him she is not interested in compensation.

Later, after he discovers a pertinent detail about Karen's husband's life, Feinberg feels compelled to tell her - only to be told by her brother Chris Tardio's Frank that he is not welcome and they are not interested in the money which would bring some degree of financial stability to the family.

Andy Schneeflock's Graham Morris reveals to Biros he was living with one victim whose family didn't recognise their gay relationship.

When she visits the victim's family, they deny their son's sexuality and dismiss Graham as an infatuated and opportunistic flatmate who is making up the relationship to get his hands on the money.

The case is made all the more challenging in that the victim hailed from Virginia which is less accommodating about the distribution of funds to those in gay relationships than in New York.

Feinberg's reluctance to get emotionally invested in the stories of victims' families initially alienates him from his team.

However his job is made even more difficult by corporate interests represented by Tate Donovan's attorney Lee Quinn who refuse to endorse a formula that won't differentiate between the earning potential of a top business executive compared to a rank and file firefighter.

With the clock ticking on securing the backing of 80% of the families and Wolf also building a powerful lobby online demanding a more sensitive process, Feinberg comes under pressure from John Ashcroft's Justice Department to roll over to Quinn's demands.

He is aghast when Wolf teams up with Quinn in a class action, knowing the lawyer is not really acting in the interests of ordinary families.

'Worth' is a thoughtful, well paced film - taking on a subject matter that doesn't seem naturally cinematic.

Borenstein nevertheless crafts an absorbing drama that asks a lot of its cast.

As in her 2018 film 'The Kindergarten Teacher,' Colangelo also proves adept at extracting touching performances from her cast and catching a telling shot.

While Biros briefs Hispanic families about the fund, the director delivers a point of view shot from the skyscraper window where she is meeting them, overlooking the ruins of the World Trade Center - ramming home the sense of devastation in the room.

Keaton, as ever, is terrific as Feinberg - a man of numbers, initial dispassion and duty who finds his logic being tossed around in a sea of emotion.

Donovan impresses too as a legal eagle who seems to revelling a little too much in the quandary that Feinberg finds himself in, while Tucci turns in a typically intelligent, dignified performance as a reasonable man who just wants Feinberg and his team to run an empathetic process that acknowledges no sum could ever truly compensate families.

Ryan, Ramanthan, Benanti, Schneeflock and Tardio inject the drama with real heart and compassion.

While Colangelo's film makes its viewers graft with painful testimonies, it is hard to dispute that they are grimly compelling.

Some of the strongest moments come a third of the way into the film, as families recount details of the last contact they had with their loved ones before the collapse of the Twin Towers.

One woman talks about her husband trying to humour her on the phone and those struggling to breathe around him as he inevitably faces death.

In a week when the world marks the 20th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the crash of United 93, these accounts are sombre reminders of the devastating impact of Al Qaeda's callous attacks on the softest of targets - ordinary civilians.

They ram home too how helping people come to terms with their grief and allowing them the space and time to properly process their tragedy is much more important than financial compensation.

'Worth' is a sensitively made, morally rigorous film about a very complex subject.

It delivers its tricky tale with empathy, with honesty and with grace.

And it is a fine testament to the work of Feinberg and his team who have gone on to administer funds to compensate the victims of the Virginia Tech, Aurora and Sandy Hook mass shootings and the Penn State and Archdiocese of New York sex abuse cases.

It has taken a while to get out to cinemas and on streaming but thank goodness it finally has.

Even though it is an emotionally gruelling film, it deserves your time.

('Worth' received its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2020 and was released in US cinemas and on Netflix in the UK and Ireland on September 3, 2021)

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