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Maggie Gyllenhaal as Allison Jimeno, concerned about her husband's safety

At the same time, the film does not shy away from the more negative effects of the stress that these families endure. We like to tell ourselves that we would bond together and stand up for each other in moments of crisis—and, broadly speaking, that is what World Trade Center shows people doing. But emergencies can also bring out our darker impulses, and there are scenes here of family members snapping at each other that feel awkwardly authentic. This film has been compared to the films of Ron Howard—especially Apollo 13, which also tells a true story of men trapped in life-threatening circumstances and the loved ones who must watch it all on TV—but there is a sharpness to these scenes that cuts just a little deeper.

The film also has a surprisingly high degree of Christian content. It's there in the crucifixes that adorn the walls of private homes and hang from rescuers' necks; it's there in the Lord's Prayer that McLoughlin shouts in a moment of peril; it's there in a startling vision that Jimeno has when he slips into unconsciousness. It is especially there in a subplot involving David Karnes (Michael Shannon), a former marine who abandons his job in Connecticut, gets a haircut, and puts his old fatigues back on—all because he believes that God is calling him to New York. And once he gets there, he plays a key role in finding McLoughlin and Jimeno under all that rubble.

William Mapother and Michael Shannon as Marines helping in the rescue operations

How you respond to the film's depiction of Karnes may affect how you respond to the claim, frequently made in recent weeks, that Stone's film is "non-political." Unlike United 93, the Paul Greengrass film which focused on the terrorists and their plot against the United States, World Trade Center keeps the villains so far offscreen you could almost mistake it for a movie-of-the-week about a mining accident. It is Karnes who keeps the bigger political picture in view, by saying things like, "We're at war," or, "We're gonna need some good men out there to avenge this."

The film might be simply reporting, as honestly as it can, how the real-life Karnes reacted to the events of that day, and some will argue that this film supports current war efforts by reminding a forgetful public just why we are at war in the first place. Then again, the film subtly plays on the notion that current war efforts may be driven by an apocalyptic evangelical sensibility that some would say is just as problematic as the radical Muslim belief in jihad; before going to New York, Karnes meets his pastor, and the scene is set by a shot of a Bible opened to the first page of Revelation.

Whatever hints Stone might be dropping, he has at least done a superb job of capturing on film what that awful day was like. There are missteps along the way—among other things, the sudden appearance, late in the game, of relatively well-known actors like Stephen Dorff and Frank Whaley as rescue workers almost pulls you out of the movie—but for the most part, it works. If United 93 was the insider's version, with scenes set at command centers and aboard one of the hijacked planes, World Trade Center allows us to relive the experience from the outsider's point of view. In one scene, Jimeno's wife walks down a lonely street late at night, and all the windows in all the houses glow in unison with the light of a single TV broadcast. Anyone who lived through that day will remember exactly what that was like.

1. This movie is about two survivors. Why do you think this story was chosen for this film? What about the thousands of people who died? What would a movie about them be like? Do you think those stories should be told, too
2. What do you make of all the Christian imagery? Do you think a miracle took place here? If so, why do you think there were so few miracles like this

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