Film - Worth

Based on the question What Is Life Worth? and bought out for the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy.

Worth centres on a firm of lawyers who have the unenviable task of working out compensation for those who lost loved ones in the 911 attack. Clearly a huge once-in-a-lifetime project, they work out a formula based on ‘economic value of loss’ to make it as fair as possible. But it isn’t.  The management of the Victims Compensation Fund leads to distrust from most involved, not helped by the tackless initial presentation by the lead lawyer, Kenneth Feinberg (Michael Keaton)), whose heart is pretty much in the right place but clearly unaccustomed to the sensitivity required by this unique very public situation.

From then on, the film is about building trust and getting the target of 80% to agree to the terms of the compensation. We meet many families, the gay man whose boyfriend called him just before he died but everything goes to his middle-class parents who did not recognise their relationship. The mum who learns of her husband’s affair and many who cannot pay the bills having lost their main breadwinner.

The hold up is how much to pay each citizen as the law firm refuses to bend the formula to work out what’s best for each case. Meanwhile, Charles Wolf, who has been widowed,  (Stanly Tucci) leads a community group and wants to help make things right for everyone. The pressure from him - and Tucci is always a great presence on the screen - makes all involved think twice.

Worth is certainly a different angle of the episode that has affected us all in different ways.

7½/10 

Netflix