It's happening at last: Although neither the Iraq war nor certainly the war in Afghanistan has reached any sort of definitive end, we're starting to see movies -- from Hollywood and elsewhere -- that deal very specifically with the traumatic readjustment (or nonadjustment) of returning soldiers. Kimberly Peirce's "Stop-Loss," released last year, turned those difficulties into soap-opera material. Oren Moverman has recently given us a far more resonant picture, "The Messenger," which follows two war vets entrusted with the job of showing up on doorsteps to notify the next of kin (NOK for short) that their loved ones have been killed in the line of duty.
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