By Robert K. Johnston and Catherine M. Barsotti
“When times are hard, people often go to the movies to escape,” or so the adage goes. The urge to escape is not the only reason people have been watching movies this past year: with life uncertain and the economy in shambles, people have also turned to our culture’s stories to find glimmers of hope amidst life’s pain and suffering.
Over the last year a number of movies came out that presented life’s messiness as their given, and then pushed beyond despair to present compelling portraits of those who overcame the odds, or at least endured with dignity. All of these movies were character driven and many are award-worthy. They are about unlikely heroes and heroines who persevere against the odds, sometimes bringing hope and life to others as a result. These are movies that will make you cry both with empathy and with admiration.
Some of this season’s films show life’s grittiness in ways that many readers will find difficult to watch. Others will realise that these portrayals, however tough, are for a reason – to help us envision hope beyond our present circumstance. One such movie is Precious (d. Lee Daniels), the compelling story of an abused teenage mother (brilliantly played by Gabourey Sidibe). Against all odds, she develops self-esteem, learning to read and write in an alternative school given the friendship of other students and the encouragement of a teacher (Paula Patton), a nurse (Lenny Kravitz), and a social worker (Mariah Carey). By the movie’s end, Precious is able to begin to make it in the world. Her life is still precarious at best, but it is also valued and valuable! As the movie ends, there will be in most moviegoers a collective sense of hard-won redemption that is at once both sobering and inspiring.
Another ‘rough’ movie with a hard won, even if slight, hopefulness is Crazy Heart (d. Scott Cooper). The film tells the story of ‘Bad’ Blake, a washed up, alcoholic, country singer (Jeff Bridges), who struggles to write new music and is helped by the love of a younger woman and her little boy. Bridges’ singing and acting won him an Oscar. You will both ache for him and root for him as he seeks to piece together a new life.
Neither Precious nor Crazy Heart have a religious back story, though key actors and musicians are Christians in the industry. The movies simply portray human heartache and hope. But other recent releases more explicitly connect their stories with the divine. The bleakest of these, surely, is The Road (d. John Hillcoat), a movie adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel about a father (Vigo Mortensen) and son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who set off by foot to find a hoped-for new beginning at the ocean after an unknown cataclysmic event has snuffed out most living things and seemingly denied all hope to the few survivors. There is only the occasional allusion to God but there is no doubt about life’s God-given sanctity, even in the worst of extremities. This is most clearly seen in the fierce love of this father for his son, something that will bring tears to the eyes of all.
More hopeful and family-friendly is Invictus (d. Clint Eastwood), the inspiring story of Nelson Mandela’s risky decision to not extract a payback from the white Afrikaners in South Africa once he became the country’s first black President. Instead, Mandela (Morgan Freeman, in a role simply made for him) chooses to make the mostly Africaner Springbok rugby team (a previous symbol of apartheid) his means of creating a new national unity. The movie is part sports movie, part social commentary, and part entertainment. With gravity and grace, determination and humility, Mandela provides viewers with an inspiring model of how prejudice might be overcome, or at least racial rapprochement achieved.
Last, but hardly least on our list of movies suggesting the presence of hope, is the surprising box office hit, The Blind Side (d. John Lee Hancock). Here is a movie for the whole family, one not to be missed. The film faithfully shows the remarkable, true-life relationship between Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock), a Christian living with her family in a wealthy, white suburb of Memphis, and Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron), a 350 pound gentle, African American giant who goes to her teenager’s school and is adopted into the Tuohy’s family.
This is Bullock’s movie and she won an Oscar for it. Her portrayal of Leigh Anne is flawless. It is Leigh Anne who creates in her home and community, despite the suspicion of friends, the context where Michael can flourish, all the time showing him empathy but never pity. In the movie, it is clear, however, that it is not only Michael who thrives because of the love shown by this Christian family. Leigh Anne, her husband (Tim McGraw), and her kids also receive the massive (quite literally!) gift of Michael’s love. If this story were not true, it might seem a little sentimental. But it is true. Here is a movie about adversity transformed by hope that all will find inspiring. It is for times such as these.
Images used with permission from Icon Film Distribution and image.net
