Plot Summary

21 Grams is a fragmented and emotionally charged meditation on fate, guilt, and redemption, unfolding through the intersecting lives of three deeply wounded souls. Professor Paul Rivers (Sean Penn), suffering from a terminal heart condition, exists in a fragile space between life and death, while his wife Mary (Charlotte Gainsbourg) clings to the hope of starting a family through artificial insemination.

In a seemingly separate world, Cristina Peck (Naomi Watts) leads a life defined by hard-won stability. Once reckless, she is now a devoted wife to Michael (Danny Huston) and a loving mother to two young children, anchored by family and routine. Meanwhile, Jack Jordan (Benicio Del Toro), an ex-convict struggling to support his family with his wife Marianne (Melissa Leo), seeks salvation through faith, attempting to rebuild his moral compass after a troubled past.

A sudden and devastating accident violently binds these strangers together, shattering their personal realities and forcing each to confront irreversible loss. As Paul faces the weight of borrowed life, Cristina is thrust into a void that threatens to consume her present and future, and Jack’s reclaimed faith is pushed to its breaking point.

Told through a non-linear narrative structure, 21 Grams examines how a single moment can echo across multiple lives, asking whether spiritual balance, once lost, can ever truly be restored—and whether connection itself may be the final measure of human survival.