One of the most surprising nominations on Oscar day was Tommy Lee Jones for his stirring work in In The Valley of Elah. It was totally out of left field and should help a movie that couldn't even make $7 million at the domestic box office. Based on that number alone, most people out there haven't seen In The Valley of Elah and will probably be drawn to it on DVD. If so, they'll find a moving portrait of a man whose son might have physically returned from Iraq but whose soul died in that horrible conflict. Paul Haggis, the Oscar-winning writer/director of Crash, made a quiet, somber film about the defining event of the last decade - the conflict in Iraq - and how children we don't even know are quietly losing their bodies and their minds in a foreign land.

Mike Deerfield, the son of Hank (Tommy Lee Jones), returned home from Iraq, didn't call his family, and abruptly disappeared. Based partially on a true story, In The Valley of Elah follows Hank as he tries to determine what happened to his son. Hank was a soldier in Vietnam and Elah partially tells the story of a new generation of soldiers, men who are less likely to stand by their brother's side, not through a fault of their own but through a horrible war that has given them something beyond Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. What Hank finds in his journey (with the help of a cop played by Charlize Theron) is shatteringly depressing and a sharp commentary on what we're doing to our own boys overseas.

Shot by the masterful Roger Deakins (who pulled possibly the best cinematic hat trick of 2007 by shooting Elah, No Country For Old Men, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), In the Valley of Elah is a cold, depressing film on every level. There's rarely a moment of levity and the story is driven by the deep sadness that Jones wears so brilliantly on his face. Not only has life let Hank down, but now his country has, too. Haggis makes a few mistakes with Elah, mostly by pounding his points home a few too many times (the final shot, in particular, is frustratingly "on the nose"), but he's never been a writer known for his subtlety. Elah is a story about the personal cost of war and the award-worthy work by Tommy Lee Jones allows that cost to hit home.

A commentary on Elah would have been great but interested viewers will undoubtedly learn similar details in the excellent pair of documentaries - "After Iraq" and "Coming Home." Both docs feature interviews with nearly the entire cast and offer insight into how In The Valley of Elah went from tragic true story to moving feature film. An additional scene, included in its five-minute entirety, should have been kept in the film and it would have been even better to hear from Haggis on why it was cut (possibly because it made Mike even less sympathetic.) The amazing thing about Jones and his work here is that even the deleted scene could have been his Oscar clip for the upcoming awards. He's so good that even his cut footage is Oscar worthy.