20 years. It’s been 20 years since September 11, 2001 changed the entire course of United States History. 2,996 people had their lives cruelly cut short, affecting countless significant others, kids, parents, and friends, who can’t put a price on what they lost without these loved ones. But that cost of life question is front and center in Worth, a well put together drama about what happened behind the scenes to try to help the victims of these horrific attacks.
This 9/11 story centers around lawyer Kenneth Feinberg (Michael Keaton), a fairly well off lawyer who helps settle traumatic cases that demand financial compensation. Usually that’s with one or two people, but in this case, Keaton agrees to take on delivering the financial compensation to all the victims of the September 11 attacks with the support of Attorney General John Ashcroft (Victor Slezak), who wants this settled quickly to avoid court battles that could crater the economy. Feinberg then goes about the tricky process of putting a dollar value on the life of thousands of people, with a 2 year window to get out as much money as he can to as many families as possible, or risk rich greedy lobbyists like Lee Quinn (Tate Donovan) taking the money for themselves.
Worth pulls a really sneaky but really powerful emotional trick on the audience. Plotwise, this movie is pretty straightforward: corporate dispassionate lawyer remembers there’s a person behind each claim. But each person is unique. 2,996 unique stories with unique circumstances that make it near impossible to see these people as just equations to be solved. The movie effectively disperses these heartbreaking stories in doses to not suck the audience dry, and creates all sorts of fascinating claims for Feinberg to consider: a firefighter with a wife and a mistress, 5 kids total; a gay man from Virginia whose parents in law disapprove of his and his husband’s lifestyle, and an 18 year old son carrying the mantle of his dead hero dad for example. Feinberg, who normally works in a world where money is the only object of these legal proceedings, slowly realizes that in this case, the money isn’t the end goal for these people: it’s for someone to care about their individual heartbreak first. These poor 9/11 victims don’t want to move on, they want to be heard and not treated like numbers. The movie manifests this very cleverly as Feinberg’s bedside table gets fuller and fuller with this mementos, trinkets and letters from these distraught people he wanted to help. So by the end, the money isn’t really important anymore: its those mementos that matter more to Feinberg and his staff. By then, Worth has made you care about all these victims and their personal stories, so all positive news brings great joy and setbacks feel like devastating blows to already hurting people.
The other fun part of Worth is some of the minutiae of setting the stakes. The attack itself is handled elegantly and discreetly, delivering the emotional hammer without subjecting people to reliving the horrific day. We’re in 2001, so social media doesn’t really exist in its current form. But blogs play a big role in the proceedings. Charles Wolf (Stanley Tucci) tragically lost his wife on September 11; he is an active participant in Feinberg’s crusade, but mostly as opposition, actively blogging about how inhumane Feinberg’s formulas are. That platform makes him a powerful figure in the story, as his built up trust with the victims makes his support matter to Feinberg. Writer Max Borenstein finds these simple easy ways to deliver the stakes, showing how uphill Feinberg and his staff’s task was. No one knows how many people were affected by the tragedy, so they go to “Missing” walls all over NYC to guesstimate a number. Then, they put on a whiteboard how many people need to be part of the fund (at least 80%) and the date they have to do it, and they keep coming back to those numbers to track time. These simple shorthands keep the audience from getting lost in the algorithm/formula conversations, so Borenstein can then deliver the emotional onslaught of the complicated human stories of all the 9/11 victims.
Legal proceedings almost seemed designed to forget the people they were put in place to help. Which is why Worth is a reminder that not all lawyers think that way. My kudos to Kenneth Feinberg, who since 9/11 has taken part in compensations funds for all sorts of tragedies small and wide. It’s a tough, sometimes cruel job, but by listening and caring, Feinberg shows us all that what’s worth the most to everyone is that they feel heard and respected.