Thank You For Your Service review: A slow but sure burner

There’s a poignant scene in ‘Thank You For Your Service’ (TYFYS) when a character talks about being physically intact but mentally messed up. He wishes he’d lost an arm or leg, at least then people would know he’s a veteran who fought for his country. It’s a grim thought but that’s unfortunately how mental illness is treated. No one is asked to walk off a fractured leg, but mental illness is treated as something to get over.

Writer-director Jason Hall (screenwriter of ‘American Sniper’) tackles the evils of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) in TYFYS, an adaptation of David Finkel’s non-fiction book of the same name. Three soldiers Adam Schumann (Miles Teller), Tausolo Aieti (Beulah Koale) and Joe Cole (Billy Waller) return home after serving a term in Iraq. Their assimilation into society is fraught with their own mental demons and the unyielding bureaucratic Veteran’s Aid system that often does more harm than good.

TYFYS is a slow but deep burn, with Hall’s screenplay chronicling the frustration and agony of an illness that’s misunderstood and neglected. The writer-director aptly depicts how the disease manifests, mutating in unpredictable ways in different people. Take for instance, Schumann who’s suffering from survivor’s guilt at having lost a fellow mate who took his place on patrol. He’s also wrecked about dropping another injured soldier (who’s rendered partially paralysed due to the fall) while trying to save him. Teller is fantastic as Schumann, silently suffering the anger of being disconnected from his family while battling the monsters in his head.

A still from the movie ' Thank You For Your Service'   | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Then there’s Aieti, who with a new baby on the way, cannot seem to remember what day it is. Suffering from fits of rage, he’s desperate for a cure, going as far as to procuring ecstasy to numb his pain. Koale’s portrayal of a man on the edge is visceral: he is all of us when we don’t want to give up but everything is pointing to that being the only way out. TYFYS is a film that solely relies on performances and boy does everyone deliver. A special shout-out to Haley Bennett who plays Schumann’s wife who wants to support her husband but doesn’t know how to.

In spite of being a film about war, TYFYS keeps the fight just out of reach, only bringing the battlefront to the fore during flashbacks. It’s apt considering PTSD is often like the unnerving calm before the storm. But like the natural disaster, this mental illness never goes away, it can only be managed.

This is a film you don’t just watch, but fully experience.