Netflix's Worth, based on real events on and in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, stars Michael Keaton as Kenneth Feinberg and Stanley Tucci as Charles Wolf.Netflix
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- Worth
- Directed by Sara Colangelo
- Written by Max Borenstein
- Starring Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci, Amy Ryan, Tate Donovan, Talia Balsam, Laura Benanti
- Classification PG13
- Streaming on Netflix as of Sept. 3
What is a life worth? A life is priceless, of course. But if you had to put a dollar figure to it, to the loss of a loved one – under order by the U.S. government – how would you go about it? And what if you’re dealing with masses of loved ones, all lost on a September morning, 20 years ago? Is a janitor’s life worth less than that of an investment bank CEO?
This is a central question posed in Worth, streaming on Netflix and based on real events.
Just days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. Congress establishes the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund for families who lost loved ones in the attack. Lawyer and mediator Kenneth Feinberg (Michael Keaton) is appointed special master of the fund. Working pro bono with his legal firm partner Camille Biros (Amy Ryan), Feinberg follows a formula to determine the payout. That formula takes into account, among other things, each victim’s salary. In one scene, he calculates the payouts for a dead CFO and a dead dishwasher: $14.2-million versus $350,000.
“Their lives ended the same way,” one grieving family member says at the clumsy initial meeting Feinberg presides over.
Feinberg’s response from the podium: “But their mortgages did differ.”
The film, which draws on Feinberg’s 2005 memoir What is Life Worth?: The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9/11, has plenty of drama to work with: the horrible events of that day, the grieving that followed. But making actuarial calculations isn’t exactly the stuff of gripping spectacle. And director Sara Colangelo at times overcompensates for this.
Tucci’s character is based on the real-life New York community organizer whose wife died in the attacks.Netflix
There’s a central element of suspense: Will they get the percentage of participants they need to satisfy Congress’s demands? This is meant to provide tension, but this will-they-or-won’t-they trope feels a little cheap, frankly.
Feinberg’s arc – from well-meaning but awkward rule follower to compassionate advocate – feels telegraphed and obvious. Although Keaton is excellent.
The most powerful scenes and storylines are those involving the victims’ families.
The partner of a Pentagon employee fights to be compensated, rather than his dead partner’s parents – from whom the victim was estranged, because they didn’t approve of (or even acknowledge) his homosexuality.
A firefighter’s widow (Laura Benanti, who is terrific) refuses compensation for herself and her three sons – and then new revelations add to her devastation.
The survivor characters are composites, with the exception of Charles Wolf (Stanley Tucci). Tucci’s character is based on the real-life New York community organizer whose wife, Katherine, died in the attacks. Wolf took his grief and indignation and created the group Fix the Fund. In the film, he is portrayed as a sympathetic adversary to Feinberg – and an intellectual (and perhaps even moral) equal: two men who appreciate opera – but not the new stuff – and care deeply about family and society.
Amy Ryan stars as Camille Biros in Worth alongside Keaton.Netflix
Take a breath. We are about to be inundated with 9/11 anniversary material: in the news and beyond. In Worth, we have a film that tries to tell this story quietly, through the victims’ families and the people who – however wrongheadedly at times – tried to help them through financial compensation. Colangelo handles much of the subject matter sensitively. When the planes fly into the towers and the Pentagon that morning, Feinberg is on a commuter train listening to his Discman as cellphones begin to ring and the passengers behind him start moving about the car in shock.
Actual footage of the events that day follows; was it necessary? For anyone who lived through it, maybe not. But this was 20 years ago now. There will be viewers who won’t have those horrific scenes seared into their brains the way some of us do.
In another scene, Colangelo subtly reminds us of the event’s collateral victims. As Feinberg enters a government building and glides through security along with other white people around him, in the background a brown man wearing a suit and a turban is hauled from the metal detector and submits to a humiliating search by the guards.
Life changed that day forever, in so many ways.
Even if it ventures into some obvious and clichéd territory at times, the film is a worthy portrayal of what was lost. And what remains.
The towers fall and Feinberg builds his own little (well, not so little) seaside dream home. America is a country of privilege – but even more than that, astounding inequality.
In the interest of consistency across all critics’ reviews, The Globe has eliminated its star-rating system in film and theatre to align with coverage of music, books, visual arts and dance. Instead, works of excellence will be noted with a critic’s pick designation across all coverage. (Television reviews, typically based on an incomplete season, are exempt.)