Knocked Up is a difficult movie to review. In fact, I have found very few Christian critics that were willing to even offer one. That's too bad, because its $30 million opening weekend take suggests that a lot of people are seeing it. It strikes me as an excellent moment for Christians to offer their voice on that experience. Having said that, I don't know too many people that I would recommend it to, even though I thought the movie was exceptionally well done. Like Borat, the controversial "mockumentary" from last year, the movie offers an uncomfortable mix of poignant cultural observations, at times winsome and likable characters, and outrageously funny but extremely offensive comedy. While those first two features offers much for many people, I expect the brand of comedy that the movie offers severely limits its audience, particularly within conservative Christian circles.
Knocked Up stars Seth Rogan as the aptly-named Ben Stone, an aimless twenty-something who fills his days smoking pot and hanging out with his friends. Unemployed, he makes his way by stretching out the proceeds of a government settlement. The $14,000 payment has lasted him nine years and counting, so materialism isn't really his problem. He's not without his ambitions, though. He and his friends have been working on a website that will collect information about the nude scenes of famous actresses. So the productive side of his life is spent "gathering research" by watching movies that contain nudity and logging the information about each scene. An abundant life, indeed.
In contrast to Ben, we have Alison Scott, played by Katherine Heigl. Alison is a rising star on the E! Network. Having worked her way up as a production assistant, she finally gets her big break with an opportunity to appear on camera as an interviewer. Thrilled at the opportunity, she decides to go out and celebrate with her sister. At the bar, she meets Ben, who clumsily buys her a drink. With encouragement from his friends, and a little bit of "liquid courage" Ben approaches and talks with Alison. As the evening progresses, their relationship follows a familiar track, as the alcohol begins to takes over where wisdom belongs. It leads them to her place, and you could fill in the rest.
Then the morning comes. For Alison, the morning brings the awful awareness of what she has done. As she stares down at Ben in the bed, she has an understandable mix of regret and horror. For Ben, he doesn't remember much of anything, and for the next few hours they must get to know each other anew. Alison quickly realizes that she has not found "Mr. Right," and the oddness of their conversation ends with polite promises to talk again.
That talk probably never would have happened until a few months later, when Alison realizes that she is pregnant. In the days that follow, Alison walks a familiar track, as she has to grapple with the reality of the pregnancy, contact Ben and let him know, then try to make sense of what this means for her future. Ben is understandably overwhelmed by the experience, realizing very quickly that he has no idea what he is doing and that he is entirely unfit for parenthood.
While Alison begins the process of picking a doctor, trying to keep her job going without them knowing about the pregnancy, and preparing for motherhood, Ben and Alison decide to give a relationship a go. The film wisely takes its time trying to cultivate this unlikely relationship, working its way to convince us that a guy like Ben could actually have a relationship with a woman like Alison. This effort works because the filmmakers are patient enough to let their relationship move slowly and in fits and starts, as we see Ben try and fail to figure out how to grow up.
Like Director Judd Apatow's breakout hit The 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up is a coming of age film for an overgrown adolescent male. In Virgin, it was Steve Carrell's shy comic book-loving bachelor trying to figure out relationships long past the point where he should have. Here, it is a loser learning about responsibilities like working and relationships in the context of unplanned fatherhood. In both cases, the movies succeed because of skilled writing and a great comedic beat and because of great casting choices, particularly in their choice of leads. Rogan's Ben is a loser, but a lovable loser, and while he is certainly unfit for a relationship and for fatherhood, his unfitness echoes the awkwardness that many of us feel when we reach these steps in life. These characters are likable because they are real, and as we laugh at them we are laughing at ourselves.
Also like Virgin, one of the things that intrigues me most about the film is the stark contrast between the comedic beat of the film and the underlying value system the movie seems to uphold. After all, in the real world, could this story ever be told? An up-and-coming career woman with no identifiable faith background has a mistaken one-night stand with a hopeless loser and winds up pregnant. With little prospects to get meaningful help through this process and with a career that would likely get derailed by having a child, how many in our culture would opt for, as Knocked Up describes it, that word that "rhymes with Shma-shmortion." Although the movie takes a moment to acknowledge her "choice" to keep the child, there is surprisingly little conflict over this. Instead, it seems from the beginning that there is instinct to keep the child, and to contend with the impacts that the child will have on her and their lives.
Alongside this choice is her immediate reaction to involve Ben in her life and her desire to cultivate a relationship, if only for the benefit of their child. Even Ben, hopeless loser that he is, feels a responsibility to act well on behalf of his child and to make things work as much as possible. He talks to his Dad, trying to seek advice about how to make things work. He stumbles on the way, but seems intent in his best moments at wanting to make things right for both Alison and his child. While I don’t want to give away the ending, I’m impressed with the way the character grew, and found myself rooting for him throughout his journey.
Although it was slow to develop, I wound up enjoying a subplot that focused on the relationship between Alison’s sister and her husband. Early in the film, the relationship seemed little more than a foil, a chance to glimpse the stereotypical negatives of marriage and commitment and offer Ben and Alison a chance to see what they needed to stay away from. As the film went on, we get to know the couple more, and especially get to enjoy the budding friendship between Ben and Pete.
As in Reign Over Me, another recent release I reviewed awhile back, the time between Ben and Pete, particularly in a quick road trip they take together late in the movie, provides opportunities for reflection on male friendship. While Ben has been spending his life around his buddies, Pete has become locked down in a marriage that leaves him little time for male companionship. In a clever parallel, as he seeks to sneak time to be with fellow “nerds” we see him acting like a man cheating on his family. As much as the movie offers reflections on family values, it is also offering some thoughts on male friendship that are worthwhile.
Knocked Up is a fascinating juxtaposition of conservative values and tasteless comedy. Its comedy serves as a language that allows the film to communicate to the college crowd and the young adult audience that should be its primarily field (keep the teens away, please). The values it communicates, though, are some that I think Christians of all ages should be largely echoing. The film’s instincts are that the unborn need protection and care, that two parents should be devoted to raising a child with love, that there is a need in our lives for real friendships, and that careers and other pressures in life are secondary next to the value of life itself. There’s more that we need to say, certainly, but what it is saying is significant, and worth celebrating.
Having just had my first child two weeks ago, the film’s birthing scenes, which included some of the most outrageous and most memorable comedy in the film, were extremely fresh for me. The freshness only enhanced that the film’s strength is in its ability to walk the same paths that we all walk in different ways, and to muse about the comedy we encounter along the way. The movie captures in part what I just experienced in whole: that birthing a child is at least one if not the most painful, most intense, and most emotional experiences a person can know in this life. But holding a newborn child in your arms, indeed, holding your newborn child in your arms, changes your perspective forever, and leaves no question in your mind that the experience was worthwhile. I even think my wife would agree with that.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Little Children: A Review
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Reign Over Me: A Review
I'm weary of the nights I've seen inside these empty halls - Jackson Browne
Over the last few days, since walking out of Reign Over Me, my mind has drifted through the past. Gin Rummy with Dave. Luther’s rib night with Sam. Madden ’92 (and ’93 and ‘94) with Kevin and Chris. The X-Files and Spades with Brien, Erik, and Kyle. The Bayou Kitchen with Jeff. Lupie’s, or the gym, or jogging, or a hundred other things with Brett. These are just a few of the friends that have walked through my paths, and some of the things that we did together.
At the core, I don’t think these kinds of associations are wrong when engaging Reign Over Me, because at its core, the movie is a reflection on the healing power of friendship. It introduces us to two men, Alan Johnson and Charlie Fineman, and lets us see the tender place their friendship has in each other’s lives.
Alan Johnson is a man that we have seen before. He’s making his way in his 40’s and is hitting his professional stride. A dentist, he has a successful Manhattan practice, a beautiful wife, and a kid that seems well-adjusted. He’s playing life at the top of his game, and of course, is completely bored with the whole experience. Alan isn’t really facing a midlife crises so much as a midlife malaise, an inability to look within and find what’s wrong when all around him seems to be going so well.
And so Charlie comes into his life. His old college roommate, Alan sees Charlie one night and tries to run him down. He doesn’t, but then sees him again, and so they reestablish their connection. It’s an odd reunion, as the Charlie he meets is a shadow of his old self, lost in a world of grief after losing his family in 9/11. Now, he is a true eccentric, spending his days constantly remodeling his kitchen, playing video games and music, and surrounding himself with his ever-expanding LP collection.
This is “Charlie World,” and for all the plot points that Reign Over Me works through, “Charlie World” is its strength. It is in this world that we get to dwell with these two men, ably played by Don Cheadle and Adam Sandler, as they fight through Charlie’s erratic madness and his inability to rebuild his life to forge a new friendship.
While the movie centers around Charlie, its success is driven in large part because it successfully develops Alan as a fully orbed character. Alan looks to Charlie with charitable eyes, but the reality is that Alan needs Charlie too. Alan loses himself in “Charlie World,” rediscovering pleasure he had long forgotten in evenings playing video games, laughing at Mel Brooks movies, and jamming to Bruce Springsteen records. For Alan, the drive of career and the responsibilities of family had left him forgetting a part of himself, and it is somewhere in the pleasures of these evenings that he starts to remember.
The movie walks a fine line, because the pieces that help Alan rediscover himself are things that could just as easily derail a man in his place. I doubt most readers think of a video game junkie, an obsessive collector, or a movie hound as the stereotype of a well-adjusted adult male. In fact, it is these very pieces that are Charlie’s escapes from reality, the fantasy world he is able to build up around himself to run from the pain that the real world gave him.
But these tools work for Alan, because in the end they aren’t the real salvation. His salvation is found in the redemptive work of real friendship. Alan’s world, with a good career and a great family was incomplete because of a lack of real male friendship. It is through his journey with Charlie that he is able to understand the ways in which he was running his life largely on autopilot, retreating into self-pity and pulling away from the very people he loved most. Charlie spent his life running away from grief, while Alan spent his running away from boredom. They needed each other to figure out how to engage the world again. The friendship that they forge is built on a healthy investment of fun time together, not on a forced and artificial intimacy that is disconnected from the basic pleasures they find in living.
Watching the movie, I was reminded of Fight Club and Lord of the Rings, two movies that have this constant theme of male friendship, as well as Wild at Heart, a book by John Eldredge that deals with “rediscovering the heart” of Christian men. When Eldredge’s book was published, I knew of a few men that misread his work and decided that they needed to spend their weekends rock-climbing to capture the essence of Christian “manliness.” I don’t think that’s what Eldredge was saying, anymore than Fight Club was an invitation to have spontaneous brawls or Lord of the Rings was an invitation to dress in elven cloaks and run to the woods. But the misinterpretations that each of these works brought about only drive home how elusive this concept of friendship, and particularly male friendship, can be.
We are a nation of lonely men. The solitary nature of our work and commuting lives, the declining number of close friendships outside of the family, and the isolating nature of our technologies, leaves far too many of us without real companionship. And no matter how strong our marriages can be, or how devoted we can be to our families, the absence of real male friendship is a hole in our lives for which there is no real substitute.
My favorite moment in Reign Over Me came in a small conversation towards the beginning of an otherwise uneven and derailing third act. While the movie itself started to doubt its own convictions about this larger theme, as it attempted to solve all of the problems in a formulaic and broad manner, it gives us this small conversation between Alan and Charlie. Alan is playing the role of tender friend, speaking with candor about some of his own frustrations with his own life before turning to Charlie’s problems, probing for a way to help his friend. Charlie, looking down and giving a classic Sandler wry grin, says “Man, I’m more worried about you.”
Did you hear that? Charlie, who threw the rest of his life away when tragedy took its best parts, is more worried about his friend who has the success and family that are miles away from Charlie’s life. The success of the movie, though, is that his statement rings true. Friendship does that, making us care more about the other guy than we do about ourselves.
Jesus himself said that the greatest love we can have is to “lay down our lives for our friends.” His vision, a vision which Reign Over Me echoes in the palest of fashions, is that of a self-denying love, a love that finds its greatest satisfaction in the well-being of the other person.
I walked out of the movie (alone, appropriately enough) with a sense of gratitude for the friends that have made their way through my paths, some for a season and some for a lifetime. I miss them, and am reminded that the gadgets that pervade my existence, the priority of family and ministry, and the tyranny of busyness, schedules, traffic and excuses must not keep me from pursuing that basic need for male friendship, a need for which there is simply no substitute.
Anyone up for barbecue?
Over the last few days, since walking out of Reign Over Me, my mind has drifted through the past. Gin Rummy with Dave. Luther’s rib night with Sam. Madden ’92 (and ’93 and ‘94) with Kevin and Chris. The X-Files and Spades with Brien, Erik, and Kyle. The Bayou Kitchen with Jeff. Lupie’s, or the gym, or jogging, or a hundred other things with Brett. These are just a few of the friends that have walked through my paths, and some of the things that we did together.
At the core, I don’t think these kinds of associations are wrong when engaging Reign Over Me, because at its core, the movie is a reflection on the healing power of friendship. It introduces us to two men, Alan Johnson and Charlie Fineman, and lets us see the tender place their friendship has in each other’s lives.
Alan Johnson is a man that we have seen before. He’s making his way in his 40’s and is hitting his professional stride. A dentist, he has a successful Manhattan practice, a beautiful wife, and a kid that seems well-adjusted. He’s playing life at the top of his game, and of course, is completely bored with the whole experience. Alan isn’t really facing a midlife crises so much as a midlife malaise, an inability to look within and find what’s wrong when all around him seems to be going so well.
And so Charlie comes into his life. His old college roommate, Alan sees Charlie one night and tries to run him down. He doesn’t, but then sees him again, and so they reestablish their connection. It’s an odd reunion, as the Charlie he meets is a shadow of his old self, lost in a world of grief after losing his family in 9/11. Now, he is a true eccentric, spending his days constantly remodeling his kitchen, playing video games and music, and surrounding himself with his ever-expanding LP collection.
This is “Charlie World,” and for all the plot points that Reign Over Me works through, “Charlie World” is its strength. It is in this world that we get to dwell with these two men, ably played by Don Cheadle and Adam Sandler, as they fight through Charlie’s erratic madness and his inability to rebuild his life to forge a new friendship.
While the movie centers around Charlie, its success is driven in large part because it successfully develops Alan as a fully orbed character. Alan looks to Charlie with charitable eyes, but the reality is that Alan needs Charlie too. Alan loses himself in “Charlie World,” rediscovering pleasure he had long forgotten in evenings playing video games, laughing at Mel Brooks movies, and jamming to Bruce Springsteen records. For Alan, the drive of career and the responsibilities of family had left him forgetting a part of himself, and it is somewhere in the pleasures of these evenings that he starts to remember.
The movie walks a fine line, because the pieces that help Alan rediscover himself are things that could just as easily derail a man in his place. I doubt most readers think of a video game junkie, an obsessive collector, or a movie hound as the stereotype of a well-adjusted adult male. In fact, it is these very pieces that are Charlie’s escapes from reality, the fantasy world he is able to build up around himself to run from the pain that the real world gave him.
But these tools work for Alan, because in the end they aren’t the real salvation. His salvation is found in the redemptive work of real friendship. Alan’s world, with a good career and a great family was incomplete because of a lack of real male friendship. It is through his journey with Charlie that he is able to understand the ways in which he was running his life largely on autopilot, retreating into self-pity and pulling away from the very people he loved most. Charlie spent his life running away from grief, while Alan spent his running away from boredom. They needed each other to figure out how to engage the world again. The friendship that they forge is built on a healthy investment of fun time together, not on a forced and artificial intimacy that is disconnected from the basic pleasures they find in living.
Watching the movie, I was reminded of Fight Club and Lord of the Rings, two movies that have this constant theme of male friendship, as well as Wild at Heart, a book by John Eldredge that deals with “rediscovering the heart” of Christian men. When Eldredge’s book was published, I knew of a few men that misread his work and decided that they needed to spend their weekends rock-climbing to capture the essence of Christian “manliness.” I don’t think that’s what Eldredge was saying, anymore than Fight Club was an invitation to have spontaneous brawls or Lord of the Rings was an invitation to dress in elven cloaks and run to the woods. But the misinterpretations that each of these works brought about only drive home how elusive this concept of friendship, and particularly male friendship, can be.
We are a nation of lonely men. The solitary nature of our work and commuting lives, the declining number of close friendships outside of the family, and the isolating nature of our technologies, leaves far too many of us without real companionship. And no matter how strong our marriages can be, or how devoted we can be to our families, the absence of real male friendship is a hole in our lives for which there is no real substitute.
My favorite moment in Reign Over Me came in a small conversation towards the beginning of an otherwise uneven and derailing third act. While the movie itself started to doubt its own convictions about this larger theme, as it attempted to solve all of the problems in a formulaic and broad manner, it gives us this small conversation between Alan and Charlie. Alan is playing the role of tender friend, speaking with candor about some of his own frustrations with his own life before turning to Charlie’s problems, probing for a way to help his friend. Charlie, looking down and giving a classic Sandler wry grin, says “Man, I’m more worried about you.”
Did you hear that? Charlie, who threw the rest of his life away when tragedy took its best parts, is more worried about his friend who has the success and family that are miles away from Charlie’s life. The success of the movie, though, is that his statement rings true. Friendship does that, making us care more about the other guy than we do about ourselves.
Jesus himself said that the greatest love we can have is to “lay down our lives for our friends.” His vision, a vision which Reign Over Me echoes in the palest of fashions, is that of a self-denying love, a love that finds its greatest satisfaction in the well-being of the other person.
I walked out of the movie (alone, appropriately enough) with a sense of gratitude for the friends that have made their way through my paths, some for a season and some for a lifetime. I miss them, and am reminded that the gadgets that pervade my existence, the priority of family and ministry, and the tyranny of busyness, schedules, traffic and excuses must not keep me from pursuing that basic need for male friendship, a need for which there is simply no substitute.
Anyone up for barbecue?
Thursday, March 15, 2007
300: A Review
300 is a difficult movie to review. I got into the experience, which is primarily a 2 hour testosterone-fueled adventure. Perhaps the most faithful response to the experience would be to simply offer a pronounced, guttural roar and move on. Certainly that response would be consistent with the intent of the marketing machine behind the movie, and perhaps of the director’s purposes.
The source material for 300 is a graphic novel by Frank Miller, a beloved comic book artist turned film director. That the movie grounds itself in the graphic novel rather than the famous Battle of Thermopylae, where a Spartan-led small army held off the Persian army for days, is significant to understand the movie’s ways. Miller made a name for himself in the world of graphic novels (read “comic books” for the less sympathetic) as a master of mood, drawing people into his worlds and stories through visceral art that captured the imagination, at times regardless of the strength of the story he was telling. This emphasis on the visual, a major reason why the comic book medium itself translates well into blockbuster films, comes through in 300. The movie is exciting storytelling, building on the fascinating and unique images from Miller’s work, much like Miller and Robert Rodriguez accomplished in the masterful Sin City, but expanding on the novel with a more interesting back story and character than the book originally offered.
That being said, historians will no doubt scoff at the picture. The movie takes huge liberties with the events themselves, the characters who played a part, and the cultures in view. Indeed, it is this last part that is currently catching the world’s attention, as the Iranian press proclaimed that “Hollywood declares war on Iran” through its depiction of the Persian Empire and its king. For those who have a love for history or an affinity for the cultures that are this movie’s villains, there are a lot of toes to step on, and 300 dances away.
But 300 doesn’t dance on these toes merely to offend, as these realities are a byproduct of the efforts to turn the participants in the Battle of Thermopylae into caricatures of heroes and villains. The Spartans are intensely devoted and passionate warriors, creating a culture that is perfectly geared to fight. King Leonidas, our film’s hero, is a passionate idealist, devoted to the freedom of Sparta and to his wife and child. His sacrifice, and the sacrifice of the other 300, is centered around their fight for freedom, for the triumph of “rationalism” over “mysticism.” The heroes of 300 wear no warts, and present a courage that is as sculpted as their bodies.
The villains also are as simple to understand. The Persian army is literally held up on the backs of slaves. Xerxes, the giant God-King, draped in gold and speaking with a thundering bass voice, reminds us of this as he steps on the slaves heads and backs as he walks down his “stairs” to meet Leonidas. Sexuality becomes one of the ways 300 depicts good and evil, as the Persians offer a decadent culture with apparent widespread homosexuality. One of the Spartans even makes reference to the Athenian “boy-lovers,” presenting us with the Spartans as the one noble, and heterosexual, culture. This, too, is a complete change from the historical realities for the Spartan culture. But this isn’t about their culture anymore. It is about ours.
What makes a hero? This is a question that could be asked of many movies, and especially of the summer, blockbuster fare (of which this movie fits in extraordinarily well). For 300, that answer lies in the clarity of conviction, in a courage to stand, in passionate love within monogamous (and apparently, heterosexual) relationships. Within Sparta, evil is found in the mystics who rely on superstition (that is, religion) rather than logic, in politicians who use their power to pursue their own ends at the expense of their people, and a deformed traitor who refuses to accept his place supporting the Spartan army.
These are clear lines that I expect many would resonate with, so long as it is not their own ancient culture that is the object of the caricature. These clear lines and defined roles make for enjoyable movie-viewing. It is fun at times to escape into a world where the lines between hero and villain are so easy to see, and all that is left is for the hero to draw the only line that he can draw. This is unambiguous and a place where good can triumph before the credits roll.
The Iranian response to the film, misguided though it may be, is a reminder of the limits of this hero’s journey. The reality that we live in rarely offers the kind of clarity that 300 depicts. The mistake comes when we attempt to draw the untextured reality of a world like this and bring it into our own world. Our current political climate, which seems to be sustained on polarization and radically simplified analysis of the world, commits this exact kind of mistake every day, as it asks us to divide the world into heroes and villains, to see the issues we face with a black-and-white clarity, and to stand firm against the evil that we face.
It is not that I disagree with this last value, only that I question my clarity on the first two. I want the kind of courage, loyalty, and heroic faith that Leonidas and the heroes of 300 embody. But I want to bring that character into a world where the politics are complex, and where my personal call is to love my enemies and to demonstrate to the world the love of God through the love that I have for other people. The “cowboy” hero, which is what the 300 hero embodies, has little room for these kinds of values, and so my search for heroism must go deeper, and will look different, than the heroes that emerge from the vivid world of the big screen. It is not, then, that 300 fails, in fact in many ways it is a great success. It is only that is asking questions that need deeper answers than what it is prepared to offer. Some of our answers will be written with periods rather than exclamation points, and most won't need a roar to accompany them.
The source material for 300 is a graphic novel by Frank Miller, a beloved comic book artist turned film director. That the movie grounds itself in the graphic novel rather than the famous Battle of Thermopylae, where a Spartan-led small army held off the Persian army for days, is significant to understand the movie’s ways. Miller made a name for himself in the world of graphic novels (read “comic books” for the less sympathetic) as a master of mood, drawing people into his worlds and stories through visceral art that captured the imagination, at times regardless of the strength of the story he was telling. This emphasis on the visual, a major reason why the comic book medium itself translates well into blockbuster films, comes through in 300. The movie is exciting storytelling, building on the fascinating and unique images from Miller’s work, much like Miller and Robert Rodriguez accomplished in the masterful Sin City, but expanding on the novel with a more interesting back story and character than the book originally offered.
That being said, historians will no doubt scoff at the picture. The movie takes huge liberties with the events themselves, the characters who played a part, and the cultures in view. Indeed, it is this last part that is currently catching the world’s attention, as the Iranian press proclaimed that “Hollywood declares war on Iran” through its depiction of the Persian Empire and its king. For those who have a love for history or an affinity for the cultures that are this movie’s villains, there are a lot of toes to step on, and 300 dances away.
But 300 doesn’t dance on these toes merely to offend, as these realities are a byproduct of the efforts to turn the participants in the Battle of Thermopylae into caricatures of heroes and villains. The Spartans are intensely devoted and passionate warriors, creating a culture that is perfectly geared to fight. King Leonidas, our film’s hero, is a passionate idealist, devoted to the freedom of Sparta and to his wife and child. His sacrifice, and the sacrifice of the other 300, is centered around their fight for freedom, for the triumph of “rationalism” over “mysticism.” The heroes of 300 wear no warts, and present a courage that is as sculpted as their bodies.
The villains also are as simple to understand. The Persian army is literally held up on the backs of slaves. Xerxes, the giant God-King, draped in gold and speaking with a thundering bass voice, reminds us of this as he steps on the slaves heads and backs as he walks down his “stairs” to meet Leonidas. Sexuality becomes one of the ways 300 depicts good and evil, as the Persians offer a decadent culture with apparent widespread homosexuality. One of the Spartans even makes reference to the Athenian “boy-lovers,” presenting us with the Spartans as the one noble, and heterosexual, culture. This, too, is a complete change from the historical realities for the Spartan culture. But this isn’t about their culture anymore. It is about ours.
What makes a hero? This is a question that could be asked of many movies, and especially of the summer, blockbuster fare (of which this movie fits in extraordinarily well). For 300, that answer lies in the clarity of conviction, in a courage to stand, in passionate love within monogamous (and apparently, heterosexual) relationships. Within Sparta, evil is found in the mystics who rely on superstition (that is, religion) rather than logic, in politicians who use their power to pursue their own ends at the expense of their people, and a deformed traitor who refuses to accept his place supporting the Spartan army.
These are clear lines that I expect many would resonate with, so long as it is not their own ancient culture that is the object of the caricature. These clear lines and defined roles make for enjoyable movie-viewing. It is fun at times to escape into a world where the lines between hero and villain are so easy to see, and all that is left is for the hero to draw the only line that he can draw. This is unambiguous and a place where good can triumph before the credits roll.
The Iranian response to the film, misguided though it may be, is a reminder of the limits of this hero’s journey. The reality that we live in rarely offers the kind of clarity that 300 depicts. The mistake comes when we attempt to draw the untextured reality of a world like this and bring it into our own world. Our current political climate, which seems to be sustained on polarization and radically simplified analysis of the world, commits this exact kind of mistake every day, as it asks us to divide the world into heroes and villains, to see the issues we face with a black-and-white clarity, and to stand firm against the evil that we face.
It is not that I disagree with this last value, only that I question my clarity on the first two. I want the kind of courage, loyalty, and heroic faith that Leonidas and the heroes of 300 embody. But I want to bring that character into a world where the politics are complex, and where my personal call is to love my enemies and to demonstrate to the world the love of God through the love that I have for other people. The “cowboy” hero, which is what the 300 hero embodies, has little room for these kinds of values, and so my search for heroism must go deeper, and will look different, than the heroes that emerge from the vivid world of the big screen. It is not, then, that 300 fails, in fact in many ways it is a great success. It is only that is asking questions that need deeper answers than what it is prepared to offer. Some of our answers will be written with periods rather than exclamation points, and most won't need a roar to accompany them.
Zodiac: A Review
There is a moment later in the movie Zodiac where Robert Graysmith, the political cartoonist turned self-appointed investigator, ably played by Jake Gyllenhaal, shows up at the home of Inspector David Toschi, played by Mark Ruffalo. Energetically offering ideas and asking questions about the investigation of a serial killer now several years stale, he is rebuffed by the detective, who asks him if he knows how many murders have been committed in the San Francisco area since the Zodiac killer’s last murder. “Hundreds,” the inspector answers his own question. Hundreds of grieving families. Hundreds of killers to bring to justice. Hundreds of cases with the same degree of importance as the case that both fascinates, then consumes, then haunts these men. Why, then, should they continue to chase trails that grow ever colder in pursuit of a resolution that may never be found?
This is the question that stands at the center of David Finch’s exceptional Zodiac. Having offered a genre-defining psychological exploration of a serial killer in Seven, he returns to the genre years later with a radically different approach. Moving away from the dark mood and the seedy world that inhabited his earlier effort, he instead offers us a way into a vibrant and energetic San Francisco of the late ‘60’s. The characters he brings to life on screen must be an actor’s dream, offering rich variety and texture. From the flamboyant and self-destructive reporter Paul Avery, played by Robert Downey, Jr., to Graysmith’s clean-cut family man and quiet cartoonist, to the detectives each filled with personality. These are generally likeable people, who come to the case with their own interests and objectives, their own histories, each to be molded by a case that will never be solved.
It is this last fact that will shape much of the response to the film. I’m not spoiling anything, mind you, or at least it isn’t the kind of spoiler that should count. I still laugh at the friend who walked out of Titanic and said to his friend, “I’m glad they finally sunk that ship,” only to have a patron in line shout, “Thanks for telling us!” You’re on notice when you’re dealing with history, and your own wiki-research, if not your own knowledge of the events, will quickly turn up that no one was ever charged in the cases that are the subject of the movie. Fincher takes a particular spin on this case, and that I won’t spoil, but he doesn’t abandon entirely the futility and madness that must define this case.
Instead, what he offers us is a long tale that slowly draws in person after person, all having their own season of fascination at the case’s mysteries. Early on, we see vivid portrayals of two of the murders. Their violence isn’t gratuitous, but they are excruciating to watch. In taking us through this, he captivates our attention as much as the people who became consumed with the case. Tossing back and forth between the investigation of the San Francisco Chronicle, the paper who received the killer’s letters, and the detectives who inherited the case when the killer turned his attention to San Francisco, we are never invited to settle on a single hero, but instead walk through various perspectives, each person finding their own end of futility.
The experiences of these different players struck me vividly and personally. I can remember, working as a prosecutor, the first time I saw a judge work his way to a wildly incorrect decision (it only took about a week on the job to see this). Watching the defendant walk out the back door when he should have been taken away in cuffs was absolutely dumbfounding. Of course, seeing things like that happen on a near daily basis, the shock grew muted, which may not have been a good thing. That “adjustment,” though, was the common coping mechanism I witnessed among most who lived and worked inside the system. Indeed, it was a survival skill that they had to have to come back to work the next day.
Zodiac has its share of these kinds of people, those who have a realistic perspective on the limits of the system and of their own abilities to ascertain and expose truth. I was impressed that Fincher was able to bring this to bear with a relatively uncynical eye, something I rarely could do in my own time as an insider. But he also provides us with the bystander’s view, through Gyllenhaal, who is driven to find truth without the incentive of career or acclaim. Indeed, as Avery points out to him early in the movie, he is the one “hero” in the movie that has no “angle” to be involved in the case.
In this sense, then Gyllenhaal is the voice for most of us who stand outside of the world of crime and must only read about it, or watch the cleanup efforts on television. As we see evil come before us, there is an innate cry for justice, and what we expect from those insiders, as we should, is their own best efforts to pursue the ends of justice, with all the complexities that that entails.
And here is where the movie succeeds most. It draws us into the madness of world of crime and the intricacies of the world of evidence and investigation, and then lets us experience in some way the frustration that insiders see every day. At the end of the day, injustice reigned because the system just couldn’t find the killer. No evil judge, or incompetent jury, no sadistic cop, or prejudiced prosecutor killed this case. All of those things may happen, but here, the limits were experienced mainly by people who were depicted as competent and conscientious, dedicated to their jobs and serious about finding the killer. They just couldn’t do it.
The reality of our world is that we will know injustice. We will see it, and if we aren’t seeing it, it is probably simply because we are closing our eyes. The best system that we can assemble, and ours is far from that, will not be able to change all of the realities of injustice. Just as we will always have the poor with us, we will always have injustice with us. And so, like Zodiac, the impulses that drive the Toschis and the Graysmiths to lay down their lives in the pursuit of truth and justice will necessarily encounter an ellipse when that search is confined to this life. We know injustice in the end because the source of Justice has not made His final move. And until He does, we will know more of these long journeys that offer only an unsatisfying ending.
This is the question that stands at the center of David Finch’s exceptional Zodiac. Having offered a genre-defining psychological exploration of a serial killer in Seven, he returns to the genre years later with a radically different approach. Moving away from the dark mood and the seedy world that inhabited his earlier effort, he instead offers us a way into a vibrant and energetic San Francisco of the late ‘60’s. The characters he brings to life on screen must be an actor’s dream, offering rich variety and texture. From the flamboyant and self-destructive reporter Paul Avery, played by Robert Downey, Jr., to Graysmith’s clean-cut family man and quiet cartoonist, to the detectives each filled with personality. These are generally likeable people, who come to the case with their own interests and objectives, their own histories, each to be molded by a case that will never be solved.
It is this last fact that will shape much of the response to the film. I’m not spoiling anything, mind you, or at least it isn’t the kind of spoiler that should count. I still laugh at the friend who walked out of Titanic and said to his friend, “I’m glad they finally sunk that ship,” only to have a patron in line shout, “Thanks for telling us!” You’re on notice when you’re dealing with history, and your own wiki-research, if not your own knowledge of the events, will quickly turn up that no one was ever charged in the cases that are the subject of the movie. Fincher takes a particular spin on this case, and that I won’t spoil, but he doesn’t abandon entirely the futility and madness that must define this case.
Instead, what he offers us is a long tale that slowly draws in person after person, all having their own season of fascination at the case’s mysteries. Early on, we see vivid portrayals of two of the murders. Their violence isn’t gratuitous, but they are excruciating to watch. In taking us through this, he captivates our attention as much as the people who became consumed with the case. Tossing back and forth between the investigation of the San Francisco Chronicle, the paper who received the killer’s letters, and the detectives who inherited the case when the killer turned his attention to San Francisco, we are never invited to settle on a single hero, but instead walk through various perspectives, each person finding their own end of futility.
The experiences of these different players struck me vividly and personally. I can remember, working as a prosecutor, the first time I saw a judge work his way to a wildly incorrect decision (it only took about a week on the job to see this). Watching the defendant walk out the back door when he should have been taken away in cuffs was absolutely dumbfounding. Of course, seeing things like that happen on a near daily basis, the shock grew muted, which may not have been a good thing. That “adjustment,” though, was the common coping mechanism I witnessed among most who lived and worked inside the system. Indeed, it was a survival skill that they had to have to come back to work the next day.
Zodiac has its share of these kinds of people, those who have a realistic perspective on the limits of the system and of their own abilities to ascertain and expose truth. I was impressed that Fincher was able to bring this to bear with a relatively uncynical eye, something I rarely could do in my own time as an insider. But he also provides us with the bystander’s view, through Gyllenhaal, who is driven to find truth without the incentive of career or acclaim. Indeed, as Avery points out to him early in the movie, he is the one “hero” in the movie that has no “angle” to be involved in the case.
In this sense, then Gyllenhaal is the voice for most of us who stand outside of the world of crime and must only read about it, or watch the cleanup efforts on television. As we see evil come before us, there is an innate cry for justice, and what we expect from those insiders, as we should, is their own best efforts to pursue the ends of justice, with all the complexities that that entails.
And here is where the movie succeeds most. It draws us into the madness of world of crime and the intricacies of the world of evidence and investigation, and then lets us experience in some way the frustration that insiders see every day. At the end of the day, injustice reigned because the system just couldn’t find the killer. No evil judge, or incompetent jury, no sadistic cop, or prejudiced prosecutor killed this case. All of those things may happen, but here, the limits were experienced mainly by people who were depicted as competent and conscientious, dedicated to their jobs and serious about finding the killer. They just couldn’t do it.
The reality of our world is that we will know injustice. We will see it, and if we aren’t seeing it, it is probably simply because we are closing our eyes. The best system that we can assemble, and ours is far from that, will not be able to change all of the realities of injustice. Just as we will always have the poor with us, we will always have injustice with us. And so, like Zodiac, the impulses that drive the Toschis and the Graysmiths to lay down their lives in the pursuit of truth and justice will necessarily encounter an ellipse when that search is confined to this life. We know injustice in the end because the source of Justice has not made His final move. And until He does, we will know more of these long journeys that offer only an unsatisfying ending.
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