Sadness reigns in Little Children. We begin with a summer playground populated by three bored housewives and their children. This is their daily ritual, a morning at the playground, engaging “conversation,” which is more a series of anecdotes and opinions delivered to nobody in particular. In brief glimpses, we know the basic unhappiness that seems to define each of their lives.
Alongside this conversation, we meet Sarah Pierce, Kate Winslet’s too-bright mother, struggling to find some place in this universe. A doctoral candidate in English Literature, her bright mind is unchallenged by the life she has chosen, and finds the playground a small solace that gives her a change of scenery, if not a real escape from the madness she feels lurking below the surface of her life.
While we come to know Sarah more than the other women, she seems at home with them in dealing with a malaise about her life. Having fiercely fought to stay home as the primary caregiver for her daughter, she questions why she took that stand, and finds herself desperate every day for the small amounts of time she has to herself when her husband comes home. Her marriage, though, is becoming increasingly strained. Her husband, presented to us as a dreadfully dull advertising executive, excuse me, “branding” executive, has himself become lost in a fantasy world. One click of the button began his slow seduction into the world of internet fantasy, and we observe one of the most realistic depictions of the comic-sadness that is internet pornography (a $4.9 billion industry, by one count). While Sarah catches him in the act, we never watch them fight through the issue. Instead, Sarah seeks her solace elsewhere.
For awhile, that solace will be found in the arms of Brad. We first meet Brad as the “Prom King,” dubbed so by the Playground Three for his frequent visits to the park with his son. He is the handsome stranger, and on a whim and a bet, Sarah meets him, and finds herself drawn to him. Their first encounter has its own strange ending, but eventually they come back together, and forge a “public friendship,” spending afternoons at the pool while their kids play.
Brad has his own struggles. A law school graduate, he is studying for his third attempt at the bar exam. While he readily accepts and talks about that failure in his life, he also finds himself drawn to various things, whether watching boys skateboarding or playing night football, that offer the hope of rediscovering his own since of masculinity. He’s married to a bombshell wife, played by Jennifer Connelly, and she pours herself into her job such that we sense a basic distance in their marriage from the very beginning.
Brad and Sarah find in each other a fantasy that they can live out. For Sarah, she sees in Brad a handsome lover who finds her engaging. He sees in her someone that believes in him, that sees the man in him that he no longer sees in himself. Their affair has been played out in their minds long before they ever act on it. When they do, it is nothing more than the raw expression of the pent up fantasies they have been living out in their minds since they met.
Then there’s the sex offender. In one of the stranger subplots in recent memory, we are introduced to Ronnie, a sex offender recently released from prison and now living in the neighborhood with his mother. Our first glimpse of him is only through the posters that the “Committee for Concerned Citizens,” actually just one unemployed ex-police officer, is putting up around the neighborhood. The town is abuzz about his presence. Everyone has an opinion about him, opinions he seems to confirm with every turn throughout the film.
We first meet him when he comes to the pool and swims around with goggles. When the police remove him from the premises, he protests that he was only there to “cool off,” but we know otherwise. In perhaps one of the saddest dating scenes in recent memory, he shows the depth of his sickness with the blind date his mother setup for him. He is a deeply disturbed man, and creates a level of discomfort any time he is present in the film.
While one might get lost in the increasing diversity of these characters, the film finds its heart in a single discussion. Invited to a book club to discuss Madame Bovary, Sarah endures a rant from the most arrogant of the Playground Three, who dismisses Bovary’s wanderings as the actions of a “slut.” Enduring the rant, Sarah responds with her gracious assessment of the character. She sympathizes with her for the unhappiness that defines her existence, and her willingness to fight against it. While she understands that she fails in her efforts, she admires her effort.
Hence, the film gives us characters who are each dealing with a defining kind of disappointment with life. For each, redemption comes not in a destination or a solution to the problem, but in a willingness to fight against that unhappiness.
Director Todd Field wisely resists a Hollywood solution to this drama. I found myself cringing through much of the last 20 minutes of the film, expecting a mundane turn in the plot. Despite several chances to do so, though, Field opts to stay true to his premise. This is not a film that gives easy solutions to its drama. I don’t even know if Field has an answer to the questions he’s asking, which allows him to find a more honest conclusion than he might otherwise have offered.
I expect that Little Children is the kind of film that a lot of Christians would have trouble seeing, but it may be just the kind of movie that many of them should see. It’s understanding of the despair that can take hold in a prosperous life is something that is probably familiar to many of us. One need only observe the balding 40-something in his convertible, the sports-obsessed at any weekend game, the conversations at a local Starbuck’s or at the local mall to see the reality of angst in the midst of success and the power of escapism to offer a salve for this angst. Perhaps we would easily dismiss the solutions these characters find for their problems, but I don’t know that we are always leading the way in finding better solutions.
The piece that I admire most about the film is its unwillingness to settle for despair. This is the necessary first step in the fight for joy, a fight that to my mind defines the Christian’s existence.
As I write this, I’m awaiting a phone call from my wife to tell me that she has gone into labor with our first child. I await word on her grandmother’s heart surgery and my cousin’s chemo treatments. I recall my conversations with friends in recent days over their frustrations over their jobs and their excitement about their pregnancies, coming weddings and graduations.
What is the outcome of this constant mix of joy and sadness, pleasure and pain all played out in a life that can move from seeming terminably long to dreadfully short in a span of hours? For many, the outcome is the kind of malaise that Little Children understands so well. We can come to see joy as a periodic byproduct that may or may not come in the midst of our journey, but certainly can’t be expected in the midst of life’s disappointments.
I think the Christian story describes a different kind of reality. It takes the desperate searching that the film describes, but points it to the Source of joy itself. C.S Lewis tells us that the basic problem of the human condition is that we are often too easily satisfied, settling for lesser pleasures than that which we are meant to know. Little Children understands some of the reasons for that, because for some the mediocrity of living makes real joy just seem to hard to actually experience.
If we are to engage in the kind of pursuit that both Lewis and Little Children consider, it may take the kind of dissatisfaction that the movie explores. If we are satisfied with a new convertible, a decent IRA, relatively conflict-free marriages and obedient children, what is there in us that will crave the passion of delighting in God above all things? Little Children understands what it takes many of us years of heartache to learn, namely, that these things will not satisfy. Resisting the temptation to settle for the mediocre as the best we can find, our call is to fight for joy, and to keep fighting until we find the real thing.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Spider-man 3: A Review
“If you want forgiveness, get religion” - Spider-man
Christ gets a prominent role in Spider-man 3. Driven to desperation, Eddie Brock, the photographer who failed in his attempts to surpass Peter Parker at the Bugle, finds himself in a church. Kneeling towards the front, he looks up at the crucifix, a vivid image of Christ on the cross, and begins his prayer. Humbled, emotional, weakened, he stumbles in the address until he finally states his single request to God: “Kill Peter Parker.”
OK, so maybe it’s not the best showing for faith in film. Nonetheless, the Spider-man saga has provided interesting commentary on heroism, if not faith, over the years. Building around the mantra that Stan Lee gave to the character from early on, “With great power comes great responsibility,” we have seen through the films a young man fighting to understand the nature of the abilities that were thrust upon him and how he can best make use of those powers for good. But Spider-man isn’t Batman, and consistent with the character the movies haven’t tried to move too much into the inner life and explore Parker’s motives. We have seen his sorrow over Ben’s death, and we have seen his failed response to that death. Beyond that, most of the emotional drama that has driven Parker to date has been his struggle to live out his new existence while still living an “ordinary life.”
Spider-man 3 is a worthy, if lesser, successor to its predecessors. $300 million can buy you some eye-popping special effects these days, but it seems it can’t always buy a good editor for a script. While the movie resists the “franchise-killer” label that other superhero “thirds” have embraced (see Batman and Superman for excellent examples), it is still a franchise that is at a crossroads, struggling to make a decision as to whether or not it is going to let these characters grow. Peter and Mary Jane have now secured their place on the list of the most boring romantic couples on the screen, having a relationship that is still marred by a thoroughly adolescent inability to communicate the barest of emotions, and as a result we feel like we’re lost in an endless relationship cycle manufactured by silly misunderstandings. While it may be unfair to simply shout at the characters, “Grow up,” the movie often fails to lets us see them grow at all.
Despite this weakness, Spider-man 3 does give us hints at a deeper voice that makes the film imminently watchable. The film’s three villains, Green Goblin, the Sandman, and Venom, all provoke Spider-man to face three basic issues in his life. In Green Goblin, the identity assumed by Peter’s friend Harry Osborn, Parker must encounter the costs his alter ego has imposed on the people he loves. In this journey, Goblin takes Spider-man on early in the film, and winds up losing his memory. This lets us glimpse at a rejuvenated Harry, freed from his resentment of Peter as he is freed from his memory of Spider-man’s involvement in his father’s death.
Alongside Harry’s story we are introduced to Flint Marko. A fugitive, we see him first on the run from the police, pausing in his run to visit his daughter. After seeing his softer side, we see him stumble into a restricted location into the middle of a radioactive science experiment (always the magic elixir of the Marvel universe). This transforms him into the Sandman, the springboard for some of the movie’s best effects. Oh, and it also turns out that he was also involved in Ben Parker’s murder, a revelation that is laid on Peter as an early piece of the unwinding of his relatively joyful existence.
Our third villain in the rogue’s gallery is Venom/Eddie Brock. Eddie is an ambitious photographer bent on stealing Peter’s job. Venom’s origins remain a mystery in the film, but originates as an alien black oil-like substance that first finds its way to Parker. The parasite tends to act as a symbiote, first attaching itself to a host then magnifying certain characteristics of its host, particularly the aggression within the host. This is key, because it tells us that whatever we see of the people who become victim to the parasite exhibit that which was already within themselves.
For Parker, the parasite’s first victim, it brings out an aggression and anger that we have only briefly glimpsed in previous movies. On the street, he is ridiculously confident, oblivious to the disgust of others at his newfound swagger. In costume, he is angry and aggressive, showing no restraint against his foes. For Brock, the second victim, the effects are even more pronounced. Consumed by anger, he transforms into the character Venom, a vicious parody of Spider-man, set on killing him. Both victims manifest their darker side, and so allow us to glimpse the shadows of their souls.
With the stage set for a grand piece of action, spiritual themes emerge that shape the film in significant ways. Chief of these is the matter of forgiveness. When Ben died, Peter went after the one he assumed was his killer, the one that he failed to stop shortly before Ben’s death in the act of committing a theft. While he wasn’t directly responsible for the thief’s death, Peter blames himself for both deaths. Facing the Sandman in this film, he does his best to kill him, and through all three stories Peter must face his need to forgive. As Aunt May reminds him, the key for Peter is not in forgiving others, but in forgiving himself.
This theme of forgiving oneself is echoed in other recent films. I think especially of The Lookout, a recent suspense film that deals deeply with a character driven by his own failure to forgive himself. In both cases, we see people who shape their lives around the realities of unforgiveness. For Peter, one of his greatest needs in his life is to extend grace to himself, and his failure to do so proves destructive to his most precious relationships. Both films suggest a broader need in our culture to contend with our failure to forgive ourselves for the mistakes of our past.
Along with this theme of forgiveness, we also see the theme of vengeance. This is such a common theme in modern super-hero films, often manifesting the values of the old westerns, that we could often pass on the issue without comment. Here, though, the desire for vengeance is paramount in Peter’s struggles. When Peter learns of Flint’s involvement in Ben’s death, he is consumed with a need to bring him to “justice.” After he assumes that he has done so, he is angry with Aunt May for failing to share in his exuberance. Aunt May reminds him of the limits of “vengeance,” and the need to let go of the pain of the past.
Peter can’t let go, and so we are invited to connect his desire for vengeance with his failure to forgive himself. Indeed, they are the same problem, as Peter can’t forgive either himself or others. He is tied up in the past, and is desperate to know the freedom of forgiveness.
Standing behind these two issues is the issue of sin itself. Actually, sin is not the film’s word, so maybe we should speak of it as “corruption.” The film’s world-view posits that Peter’s desire for vengeance and unforgiving attitude are not character flaws that exist in a vacuum, but are manifestations of a darkness in his soul. Peter doesn’t forgive because there is something within himself that doesn’t want to, a dark spot that revels in the blood lust of vengeance.
The problem with Spider-man 3 is that it doesn’t believe it’s own vision. The film positions itself well in trying to understand the universal corruption of the human soul, that which Christianity calls sin. But what is the solution to that corruption? For the film, the solution lies within Parker himself. Similar to his mantra, Parker comes to see his need to “make good choices,” knowing that bad choices will always prove tempting.
This reveals a basic failure to understand its subject. If Parker has this darkness within himself, if the aggression, anger, and selfishness that we see when he dons the black suit is truly an expression of his deeper urgings, why should we believe that there exists within that same person the ability to “shut it off?” If this corruption is real, than it should effect the whole person, including whatever faculty that Parker must rely on to make that good choice.
It strikes me that the filmmakers are ready to give us a universe that has good and evil, and even see some of that evil lying within ourselves. But they’re not ready to call that evil “sin,” and as such, there is something missing in their moral universe. The Christian view helps us understand Parker’s problem. Through the Christian story, we see Parker’s corruption, made manifest through the alien symbiosis, as the expression of the darkness that we all inherit from the fall. But this problem of sin cannot be solved by ourselves. The darkness is too deep, and it consumes too much of what we have become.
I don’t want to be too hard on the film, because too often Christians believe the same thing that the film does. We don’t like to talk about sin, and at times the church can present the false notion that we are generally decent people in need of minor correction. The gospel story, that we are desperate sinners without hope but for the divine intervention of the cross into our lives, falls away as we present ourselves as morally upright and upstanding citizens. We redefine our moral boundaries so that we can suggest that we generally comply with our diminished moral universe, and can praise God for covering over the slip-ups.
What the we need, and what the film needs, is a deeper understanding of the human condition. Yes, we need to forgive ourselves, and yes, there is a vital connection between our failure to forgive ourselves and our inability to forgive others. But these are merely manifestations of the deeper problem from which we need rescue. At our core, we are in need of transformation, and that transformation must ultimately be found outside of ourselves. We cannot generate it, and we cannot maintain it. We are paupers in need of grace, no matter how good our disguise.
Spider-man 3 understands the need for salvation. Christianity speaks of a need for a Savior. The difference between these two is critical, because in the end we cannot have the former without the latter.
Christ gets a prominent role in Spider-man 3. Driven to desperation, Eddie Brock, the photographer who failed in his attempts to surpass Peter Parker at the Bugle, finds himself in a church. Kneeling towards the front, he looks up at the crucifix, a vivid image of Christ on the cross, and begins his prayer. Humbled, emotional, weakened, he stumbles in the address until he finally states his single request to God: “Kill Peter Parker.”
OK, so maybe it’s not the best showing for faith in film. Nonetheless, the Spider-man saga has provided interesting commentary on heroism, if not faith, over the years. Building around the mantra that Stan Lee gave to the character from early on, “With great power comes great responsibility,” we have seen through the films a young man fighting to understand the nature of the abilities that were thrust upon him and how he can best make use of those powers for good. But Spider-man isn’t Batman, and consistent with the character the movies haven’t tried to move too much into the inner life and explore Parker’s motives. We have seen his sorrow over Ben’s death, and we have seen his failed response to that death. Beyond that, most of the emotional drama that has driven Parker to date has been his struggle to live out his new existence while still living an “ordinary life.”
Spider-man 3 is a worthy, if lesser, successor to its predecessors. $300 million can buy you some eye-popping special effects these days, but it seems it can’t always buy a good editor for a script. While the movie resists the “franchise-killer” label that other superhero “thirds” have embraced (see Batman and Superman for excellent examples), it is still a franchise that is at a crossroads, struggling to make a decision as to whether or not it is going to let these characters grow. Peter and Mary Jane have now secured their place on the list of the most boring romantic couples on the screen, having a relationship that is still marred by a thoroughly adolescent inability to communicate the barest of emotions, and as a result we feel like we’re lost in an endless relationship cycle manufactured by silly misunderstandings. While it may be unfair to simply shout at the characters, “Grow up,” the movie often fails to lets us see them grow at all.
Despite this weakness, Spider-man 3 does give us hints at a deeper voice that makes the film imminently watchable. The film’s three villains, Green Goblin, the Sandman, and Venom, all provoke Spider-man to face three basic issues in his life. In Green Goblin, the identity assumed by Peter’s friend Harry Osborn, Parker must encounter the costs his alter ego has imposed on the people he loves. In this journey, Goblin takes Spider-man on early in the film, and winds up losing his memory. This lets us glimpse at a rejuvenated Harry, freed from his resentment of Peter as he is freed from his memory of Spider-man’s involvement in his father’s death.
Alongside Harry’s story we are introduced to Flint Marko. A fugitive, we see him first on the run from the police, pausing in his run to visit his daughter. After seeing his softer side, we see him stumble into a restricted location into the middle of a radioactive science experiment (always the magic elixir of the Marvel universe). This transforms him into the Sandman, the springboard for some of the movie’s best effects. Oh, and it also turns out that he was also involved in Ben Parker’s murder, a revelation that is laid on Peter as an early piece of the unwinding of his relatively joyful existence.
Our third villain in the rogue’s gallery is Venom/Eddie Brock. Eddie is an ambitious photographer bent on stealing Peter’s job. Venom’s origins remain a mystery in the film, but originates as an alien black oil-like substance that first finds its way to Parker. The parasite tends to act as a symbiote, first attaching itself to a host then magnifying certain characteristics of its host, particularly the aggression within the host. This is key, because it tells us that whatever we see of the people who become victim to the parasite exhibit that which was already within themselves.
For Parker, the parasite’s first victim, it brings out an aggression and anger that we have only briefly glimpsed in previous movies. On the street, he is ridiculously confident, oblivious to the disgust of others at his newfound swagger. In costume, he is angry and aggressive, showing no restraint against his foes. For Brock, the second victim, the effects are even more pronounced. Consumed by anger, he transforms into the character Venom, a vicious parody of Spider-man, set on killing him. Both victims manifest their darker side, and so allow us to glimpse the shadows of their souls.
With the stage set for a grand piece of action, spiritual themes emerge that shape the film in significant ways. Chief of these is the matter of forgiveness. When Ben died, Peter went after the one he assumed was his killer, the one that he failed to stop shortly before Ben’s death in the act of committing a theft. While he wasn’t directly responsible for the thief’s death, Peter blames himself for both deaths. Facing the Sandman in this film, he does his best to kill him, and through all three stories Peter must face his need to forgive. As Aunt May reminds him, the key for Peter is not in forgiving others, but in forgiving himself.
This theme of forgiving oneself is echoed in other recent films. I think especially of The Lookout, a recent suspense film that deals deeply with a character driven by his own failure to forgive himself. In both cases, we see people who shape their lives around the realities of unforgiveness. For Peter, one of his greatest needs in his life is to extend grace to himself, and his failure to do so proves destructive to his most precious relationships. Both films suggest a broader need in our culture to contend with our failure to forgive ourselves for the mistakes of our past.
Along with this theme of forgiveness, we also see the theme of vengeance. This is such a common theme in modern super-hero films, often manifesting the values of the old westerns, that we could often pass on the issue without comment. Here, though, the desire for vengeance is paramount in Peter’s struggles. When Peter learns of Flint’s involvement in Ben’s death, he is consumed with a need to bring him to “justice.” After he assumes that he has done so, he is angry with Aunt May for failing to share in his exuberance. Aunt May reminds him of the limits of “vengeance,” and the need to let go of the pain of the past.
Peter can’t let go, and so we are invited to connect his desire for vengeance with his failure to forgive himself. Indeed, they are the same problem, as Peter can’t forgive either himself or others. He is tied up in the past, and is desperate to know the freedom of forgiveness.
Standing behind these two issues is the issue of sin itself. Actually, sin is not the film’s word, so maybe we should speak of it as “corruption.” The film’s world-view posits that Peter’s desire for vengeance and unforgiving attitude are not character flaws that exist in a vacuum, but are manifestations of a darkness in his soul. Peter doesn’t forgive because there is something within himself that doesn’t want to, a dark spot that revels in the blood lust of vengeance.
The problem with Spider-man 3 is that it doesn’t believe it’s own vision. The film positions itself well in trying to understand the universal corruption of the human soul, that which Christianity calls sin. But what is the solution to that corruption? For the film, the solution lies within Parker himself. Similar to his mantra, Parker comes to see his need to “make good choices,” knowing that bad choices will always prove tempting.
This reveals a basic failure to understand its subject. If Parker has this darkness within himself, if the aggression, anger, and selfishness that we see when he dons the black suit is truly an expression of his deeper urgings, why should we believe that there exists within that same person the ability to “shut it off?” If this corruption is real, than it should effect the whole person, including whatever faculty that Parker must rely on to make that good choice.
It strikes me that the filmmakers are ready to give us a universe that has good and evil, and even see some of that evil lying within ourselves. But they’re not ready to call that evil “sin,” and as such, there is something missing in their moral universe. The Christian view helps us understand Parker’s problem. Through the Christian story, we see Parker’s corruption, made manifest through the alien symbiosis, as the expression of the darkness that we all inherit from the fall. But this problem of sin cannot be solved by ourselves. The darkness is too deep, and it consumes too much of what we have become.
I don’t want to be too hard on the film, because too often Christians believe the same thing that the film does. We don’t like to talk about sin, and at times the church can present the false notion that we are generally decent people in need of minor correction. The gospel story, that we are desperate sinners without hope but for the divine intervention of the cross into our lives, falls away as we present ourselves as morally upright and upstanding citizens. We redefine our moral boundaries so that we can suggest that we generally comply with our diminished moral universe, and can praise God for covering over the slip-ups.
What the we need, and what the film needs, is a deeper understanding of the human condition. Yes, we need to forgive ourselves, and yes, there is a vital connection between our failure to forgive ourselves and our inability to forgive others. But these are merely manifestations of the deeper problem from which we need rescue. At our core, we are in need of transformation, and that transformation must ultimately be found outside of ourselves. We cannot generate it, and we cannot maintain it. We are paupers in need of grace, no matter how good our disguise.
Spider-man 3 understands the need for salvation. Christianity speaks of a need for a Savior. The difference between these two is critical, because in the end we cannot have the former without the latter.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Notes on a Scandal: A Review
One of the more haunting images of the past few weeks was that of Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech killer, posed in his homemade video with a gun in each hand and a cruel snarl on his face. It was a stark image, especially when taken alongside the initial picture of the expressionless schoolboy that had circulated in the days following the shooting. The university, the Korean-American community, the state and the nation have been left to wonder about the tale of a quiet misfit and his path to mental instability and finally to enraged evil. His pose gives voice to that rage, as it reveals the obsession that he expressed that day on the campus.
But what of that obsession? Is it merely the property of the mentally disturbed, or are others subject to the same lure? Strange as it may seem, Notes on a Scandal, the recent Oscar-nominated film by Richard Eyre, gave me the context to consider this question. Eyre, who himself has a rich background in the British theater, gives us a platform to demonstrate the acting prowess of Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett (both of whom received nominations for their work), and it is their work that stands as the great strength of the film. Dame Dench plays Barbara Covett, who is introduced first as a surly, cynical and unappreciated school teacher. She has long since lost any delusions about her job, and is bored by the machinations of the school process. We hear the world described through her journal, but must measure those words with what we see. They don’t match up.
In contrast to Barbara’s despairing cynicism we have Blanchett’s Sheba Hart, a new art teacher, who is full of life and, while lacking wisdom in the art of teaching, at least brings zeal and passion. Through the quiet use of the camera, we learn immediately that Barbara’s interest in Sheba is more than passing. She is attracted to her, and though masking it with her cool demeanor, slowly finds ways to bring her into her world.
They forge a friendship, and it is through the conversations around this friendship and the rantings from Barbara’s journal that we come to learn that both of them are writing tales about obsession. For Barbara, she conjures up a story of their budding love affair, of the deep and meaningful companionship that they are meant to have together for a lifetime. On the other, we learn of Sheba’s unhappiness with her marriage, her exhaustion at raising two children, one of whom suffers from Down’s Syndrome, and eventually of the pressure she feels because she is the daughter of a famous man. The film slowly sets the stage for her feelings of being trapped, and then, in a wonderfully delivered scene, we learn along with Barbara her terrible secret: She is involved in an affair with one of her 15-year old students.
The scandal is revealed, and Barbara decides to use her knowledge to her advantage. She uses the affair to manipulate Sheba, and then when Sheba rejects her affections, she uses her knowledge to try and bring Sheba down. Soon, both become embroiled in a scandal that is national fodder for the tabloids.
Both women spend their lives constructing a fantasy world that is their means of coping with and escaping from their reality. While Barbara’s lesbianism could be a major focus of the piece, Eyre makes the wise choice to avoid that issue. While Barbara is pursuing this relationship, we get a brief scene between her and her family, where they reference a prior relationship that Barbara had had. They do so with a voice of acceptance, perhaps even approval. This is key, because we could assume that Barbara’s obsession is driven by her lifestyle and the disapproval that society brings. It isn’t, and the acceptance that we see in the film simply drives home the truth that Barbara’s fantasy world is one of her own creation that is made for her own ends. The root cause of her fantasy life is found not in her culture’s constraints, but in her own basic dissatisfaction with life.
But if dissatisfaction is what drives the obsessive retreat into fantasy, what is the cure? For the film, I think the answer is found in one brief scene towards the end. Both Barbara and Sheba’s obsession is brought to life, and both must endure some degree of public shame for the way in which their fantasy failed to comport with reality. But while one eventually simply begins to spin a new tale of fantasy, the other gives us some hope of finding healing, as she embraces her family and the role that they can play in her recovery.
In the end, Scandal provides a fascinating commentary on the private nature of our lives and the negative consequences that this can bring. It is easy in our world to become captives of our technology, our commutes, and the other treasures of our world. We have few friends, more time in the car, and know less about our neighbors with each passing day. And while we can isolate ourselves further and further, we have some of the same basic human weaknesses and human need that we always have had. We have a longing for love and acceptance, for relationships that are meaningful, and for lives that have purpose. Life has a way of challenging each of those needs.
There is a temptation that is alluring for us when we encounter these isolated lives of longing, and it is the temptation that Barbara and Sheba live out in extreme form. That temptation is to live in a fantasy world, whether that fantasy is constructed of material possessions, or success in career, in illicit affairs, or the retreats of the imagination. The cure for them and for us is community. The truth is that we need each other. One of the sources for our own healing from the anxieties, fears, and frustrations that we see in Barbara and Sheba is found in the care and concern we have for each other. Community is the cure, but as Sheba demonstrates, it is a cure that we must submit ourselves to again and again, knowing that there will be much along the way to make us want to retreat.
Of course, this kind of analysis is incomplete, and for every film like Scandal that sees a redemptive role for communities, we can find as many films that will show us destructive communities and the evil that they do. But that is simply a reminder of the need for the community itself to live in submission to Someone higher than itself. See, we don’t just need community. We need the Church, the real Church, not just the easy substitutes that we embrace so often today. Without it, the healing that Barbara and Sheba both need to find will always be incomplete.
Perhaps it seems too easy an answer, but I expect the complexity must be found within it. Christ is the answer, whether it is for Barbara's ramblings, Sheba's malaise or Cho's darkness. He is indeed the hope of the world, and the only object worthy of our deepest affections.
But what of that obsession? Is it merely the property of the mentally disturbed, or are others subject to the same lure? Strange as it may seem, Notes on a Scandal, the recent Oscar-nominated film by Richard Eyre, gave me the context to consider this question. Eyre, who himself has a rich background in the British theater, gives us a platform to demonstrate the acting prowess of Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett (both of whom received nominations for their work), and it is their work that stands as the great strength of the film. Dame Dench plays Barbara Covett, who is introduced first as a surly, cynical and unappreciated school teacher. She has long since lost any delusions about her job, and is bored by the machinations of the school process. We hear the world described through her journal, but must measure those words with what we see. They don’t match up.
In contrast to Barbara’s despairing cynicism we have Blanchett’s Sheba Hart, a new art teacher, who is full of life and, while lacking wisdom in the art of teaching, at least brings zeal and passion. Through the quiet use of the camera, we learn immediately that Barbara’s interest in Sheba is more than passing. She is attracted to her, and though masking it with her cool demeanor, slowly finds ways to bring her into her world.
They forge a friendship, and it is through the conversations around this friendship and the rantings from Barbara’s journal that we come to learn that both of them are writing tales about obsession. For Barbara, she conjures up a story of their budding love affair, of the deep and meaningful companionship that they are meant to have together for a lifetime. On the other, we learn of Sheba’s unhappiness with her marriage, her exhaustion at raising two children, one of whom suffers from Down’s Syndrome, and eventually of the pressure she feels because she is the daughter of a famous man. The film slowly sets the stage for her feelings of being trapped, and then, in a wonderfully delivered scene, we learn along with Barbara her terrible secret: She is involved in an affair with one of her 15-year old students.
The scandal is revealed, and Barbara decides to use her knowledge to her advantage. She uses the affair to manipulate Sheba, and then when Sheba rejects her affections, she uses her knowledge to try and bring Sheba down. Soon, both become embroiled in a scandal that is national fodder for the tabloids.
Both women spend their lives constructing a fantasy world that is their means of coping with and escaping from their reality. While Barbara’s lesbianism could be a major focus of the piece, Eyre makes the wise choice to avoid that issue. While Barbara is pursuing this relationship, we get a brief scene between her and her family, where they reference a prior relationship that Barbara had had. They do so with a voice of acceptance, perhaps even approval. This is key, because we could assume that Barbara’s obsession is driven by her lifestyle and the disapproval that society brings. It isn’t, and the acceptance that we see in the film simply drives home the truth that Barbara’s fantasy world is one of her own creation that is made for her own ends. The root cause of her fantasy life is found not in her culture’s constraints, but in her own basic dissatisfaction with life.
But if dissatisfaction is what drives the obsessive retreat into fantasy, what is the cure? For the film, I think the answer is found in one brief scene towards the end. Both Barbara and Sheba’s obsession is brought to life, and both must endure some degree of public shame for the way in which their fantasy failed to comport with reality. But while one eventually simply begins to spin a new tale of fantasy, the other gives us some hope of finding healing, as she embraces her family and the role that they can play in her recovery.
In the end, Scandal provides a fascinating commentary on the private nature of our lives and the negative consequences that this can bring. It is easy in our world to become captives of our technology, our commutes, and the other treasures of our world. We have few friends, more time in the car, and know less about our neighbors with each passing day. And while we can isolate ourselves further and further, we have some of the same basic human weaknesses and human need that we always have had. We have a longing for love and acceptance, for relationships that are meaningful, and for lives that have purpose. Life has a way of challenging each of those needs.
There is a temptation that is alluring for us when we encounter these isolated lives of longing, and it is the temptation that Barbara and Sheba live out in extreme form. That temptation is to live in a fantasy world, whether that fantasy is constructed of material possessions, or success in career, in illicit affairs, or the retreats of the imagination. The cure for them and for us is community. The truth is that we need each other. One of the sources for our own healing from the anxieties, fears, and frustrations that we see in Barbara and Sheba is found in the care and concern we have for each other. Community is the cure, but as Sheba demonstrates, it is a cure that we must submit ourselves to again and again, knowing that there will be much along the way to make us want to retreat.
Of course, this kind of analysis is incomplete, and for every film like Scandal that sees a redemptive role for communities, we can find as many films that will show us destructive communities and the evil that they do. But that is simply a reminder of the need for the community itself to live in submission to Someone higher than itself. See, we don’t just need community. We need the Church, the real Church, not just the easy substitutes that we embrace so often today. Without it, the healing that Barbara and Sheba both need to find will always be incomplete.
Perhaps it seems too easy an answer, but I expect the complexity must be found within it. Christ is the answer, whether it is for Barbara's ramblings, Sheba's malaise or Cho's darkness. He is indeed the hope of the world, and the only object worthy of our deepest affections.
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