’13 Reasons Why’: A World without Hope

 

THE DARKNESS OF NETFLIX’S NEW HIT SERIES

5/11/17

Once upon a time, a young novelist wrote a Young Adult novel about suicide. It became, in the words of The New York Times, “a stealthy hit with surprising staying power.”

Then it became a Netflix series. And suddenly there was no longer anything stealthy about it. Jay Asher’s “13 Reasons Why” is now the story everyone is talking about. Like Hannah Baker, the suicide victim at the heart of the tale, “13 Reasons Why” has found a way to ensure its own immortality — for better or for worse.

As you probably know by now, the story begins after Hannah’s (Katherine Langford) suicide. While her fellow students are still creating memorials and taking selfies in front of her locker, a bombshell drops on her friend Clay Jensen (Dylan Minnette). A shoebox full of cassette recordings that Hannah created before her death is left with him — recordings addressed to 13 different people whom she says gave her reasons to kill herself.

As Clay begins to listen, dreading the moment when he’ll hear his own name, the high school experience comes to life around him, through both flashbacks and present-day storylines — an experience that the viewer soon begins to wonder how anyone could survive. While their parents hover anxiously but helplessly on the sidelines, and teachers make fruitless sporadic efforts at guidance, the kids in their care endure a journey that makes “Lord of the Flies” look like “Gilligan’s Island.” Drugs and alcohol flow freely, bullying and sexual assault are facts of life, an innocent photograph or a few whispers can wreck a reputation, and the person who’s your best friend today could turn on you tomorrow.

“13 Reasons Why,” the book, was a sad and difficult read. “13 Reasons Why,” the series, is troubling at much deeper levels, in ways that have as much to do with its format as its content. In fact, it’s perhaps one of the best examples I’ve ever seen of Marshall McLuhan’s classic aphorism “The medium is the message.” In order to turn a 288-page novel into a 13-hour television show, a lot had to be added — subplots in which characters struggle for justice or vengeance or simply to silence each other, new character backgrounds and arcs, love interests and other new relationships — most of which simply adds bloat without substance. More to the point, it all makes the whole story darker and much more intense, enveloping us in a world where there’s little light or air or hope.

What has particularly bothered many parents and educators about the show is that Hannah’s voice floating above all these stories gives us the impression that she lives on after death — moreover, that death gave her a power she never had in life. Watching the way that Hannah’s revelations begin to unravel the lives of the kids listening to them, some have even used the term “revenge porn” to describe what she’s doing. This is one of the ways in which “13 Reasons Why” works against its stated purpose: to discourage teen suicide.

As Jaclyn Grimm writes in USA Today, for instance:

I’ve dealt with depression and suicidal thoughts since middle school, about the younger age of 13 Reasons Why’s audience. I never imagined logistics: razor blades cutting delicate skin, the quick violence of a gunshot. What I saw in my mind was crying peers and thousands of flowers and people wishing they had reached out to me. I didn’t want pain; I wanted control. While watching the show, the bullying, assault and even the suicide itself didn’t stand out to me. All I could focus on was the power the main character had after her death.

The way the show portrays these things, it doesn’t always seem to matter that Hannah is not actually around to exercise and enjoy that power. What matters is simply that she has it at last.

Similarly, I think the graphic depiction of Hannah’s suicide may have backfired. In the book, she took pills; in the series, she slits her wrists in the bathtub — and viewers see it all, including her parents’ horror when they discover her dead body. The creators’ stated intent was to make suicide look unappealing and avoid glamorizing it. But witnessing this dark and ugly act as the culmination of all the darkness and ugliness we’ve already seen seems to suck away the very last remnants of hope in the show’s world. It stirs great compassion for this lost and hopeless girl, but it also tempts us to despair like her own. And it leads us to understand why experts warn against explicit portrayals of suicide.

Though life goes on for others, though Clay desperately says of the school’s poisonous atmosphere, “It has to get better,” we see no actual reason why it might or will. Because people learn to be more aware of each other’s problems, and treat each other better? That’s the goal — that’s how we see Clay finally behaving at the end, after a period of lashing out and trying to get revenge on Hannah’s behalf. But a fundamental flaw in both versions of the story is that so much responsibility for one girl’s mental health is placed on other people. Yes, it matters deeply how we treat each other, but the idea that kids are responsible for keeping each other alive is neither true nor fair.

The same goes for the all-too-pervasive idea — trickled down from movies for adults, without a doubt — that romantic relationships can save us. Clay is haunted by the thought that Hannah died because he was “afraid to love her”; though the school counselor tries to talk him out of the idea, he clings to it. So many of these characters have a need for love, an instinctual understanding of its importance, but no concept of the kind of love that actually does save. Religious faith is mentioned only in passing, and not in any way that suggests it could provide real and lasting help. Romantic relationships, heterosexual and homosexual, abound, but most of them are as messed up as you might expect from a bunch of teenagers guided only by their hormones. And more than once, they cross the line into brutality.

Interestingly, the show pulls a punch I didn’t expect at a climactic moment. Whereas in the book Hannah gave in to consensual sex with a boy she despised, out of sheer despair and self-loathing, in the show it becomes a clear case of sexual assault. I wish they had stuck with the original scenario, because it showed such a realistic picture of the “gray area” where so many kids live when they’ve done something wrong but have no moral framework to think or talk about it. But in both versions, a visit to a counselor who also has little moral framework does no good, and Hannah finally gives up on life.

Does “13 Reasons Why” have any value at all? Some people I’ve talked to — including those who work with kids — suggest that it draws attention to struggles and difficulties that kids have been undergoing for a long time. There have been disturbing stories of suicide attempts tied to the show, but there were also disturbing stories of rising teen suicide rates long before the show premiered. The f-bombs flying through the school halls are very similar to what I heard in junior high; the rates of drug and alcohol abuse among this age group are no secret; and nearly every woman alive could tell you stories of harassment — or worse — similar to what Hannah and some of her female classmates endured. Many kids have been crying out for help; perhaps “13 Reasons Why” has served to amplify their voices.

But by the series’ own lights (or lack thereof), it’s hard to see how there’s ultimately much hope for any of us, and that is the greatest problem with “13 Reasons Why.” I don’t fault Jay Asher or the show’s creators for thinking they had a project on their hands that might strike a blow against suicide, but the limited and flawed worldview they brought to it meant that they were deeply, dangerously wrong. Troubled kids need and deserve better.

For Further Reading:

Colby Itkowitz, “These students who’ve struggled emotionally are sharing ’13 Reasons Why Not’ over their school loudspeaker,” The Washington Post, May 9, 2017.

Image copyright Netflix. “13 Reasons Why” is rated TV-MA for suggestive dialogue, coarse or crude language, sexual situations, and violence.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog, and the author of “One by One: Welcoming the Singles in Your Church” (Baker, June 2017).

Resurrecting Fanny Mendelssohn

 OF MUSIC, GENDER, AND CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW

3/30/17

When it comes to gender issues, Christians today usually find ourselves in a corrective or even a defensive posture. We’re often the only voices that can be heard insisting that, yes, gender is a real thing and it does make a difference, while the rest of the world, in a headstrong quest for freedom, claims that no, it isn’t and it doesn’t.

Christians in every age are called to stand against that age’s particular sins and follies, and our own calling in this age is no different. As those who believe in God’s unique design for humanity, we must stand by that belief and call others back to it. That said, we must also be careful not to undermine our case by rushing to the opposite extreme: making gender even more important than it is, and using it as a tool to raise some at the expense of others.

This is the very error in previous generations that helped lead so many in this one to want to do away with gender altogether. Doubling down on that error only polarizes everyone even further — and worse than that, it denies the image of God in our fellow human beings.

Take the case of Fanny Mendelssohn.

Fanny was the sister of the great 19th-century composer Felix Mendelssohn — and a gifted composer and pianist in her own right. As reported in The Guardian, The Washington Post, and other outlets, Felix sometimes got credit for Fanny’s work — all the more so because, while he was encouraged to pursue a career in music, she was strongly discouraged from doing so.

Smithsonian Magazine recounts, “While Fanny’s father encouraged his daughter to perform in the family home, he believed it would be indecent for a woman of her status to pursue any kind of career. ‘[The Mendelssohn family was] very high class, and a high class woman did not appear publicly as a professional,” [music historian Angela Mace] Christian explains. ‘Publicity was associated with loose morals and possibly amoral behavior.'” Apparently, that was all right for men, but not for women.

But Fanny composed nonetheless — with strong encouragement from her husband, artist Wilhelm Hensel. Their great-great-great granddaughter Sheila Hayman writes, “He said he wouldn’t marry Fanny unless she carried on composing; and every morning of their marriage, before he went off to paint, he would put a piece of blank manuscript paper on her music stand and tell her he wanted to see it filled up when he returned.” In 1829, at age 22, Fanny Mendelssohn recorded in her diary the composition and performance of an “Easter Sonata” for piano.

So it’s odd that, when the long-lost manuscript of such a sonata turned up with “F. Mendelssohn” written on it, it was attributed to Felix, not to Fanny, and recorded with his name on the record. While the initials might have been the same, it was Fanny, not Felix, who had actually left a written record of composing an Easter Sonata. (A letter from a friend of Fanny’s also refers to the sonata as hers.) And there were stylistic differences that caught the ear of Angela Mace Christian.

When Christian, however, challenged the attribution, the collector who owned the manuscript, Henri-Jacques Coudert, begged to differ. His argument was (and remains) that the sonata is “too masculine . . . too violent” to have been written by a woman. The irony is, Felix Mendelssohn’s own music has never been characterized as particularly masculine or violent. Unlike many of his Romantic contemporaries, who tended to write weighty, dramatic works, Mendelssohn was known largely for light, graceful, often sunny music.

It took some intensive detective work for Christian to prove once and for all that the Easter Sonata was Fanny Mendelssohn’s — and in the process, strike a decisive blow against the idea that gender dictates style. (Coudert still doesn’t buy it.) But earlier this month, 188 years after she wrote it, it had its premiere performance under her name, broadcast on BBC Radio, where you can listen to it for seven more days. A reviewer for The Telegraph called the work “an astonishing piece of restless energy and burning spiritual aspiration,” steeped in religious allusion and symbolism.

If there’s one thing that emerges clearly from this story, it’s that Fanny Mendelssohn’s age had its own set of issues with gender — and, if Coudert’s attitude is any indication, that we’re still dealing with that age’s cultural hangover. Not that anything could stop her from using her God-given musical gifts. As her descendant writes,

Fanny composed. She couldn’t help it. She was a creative artist like her brother, driven to write music, live and breathe it, and use it to express whatever happened to her. She wrote her own wedding music, the night before the ceremony, when Felix failed to deliver on his promise to do so. She nursed the family through a cholera epidemic, then wrote a Cholera Cantata when it was all over.

Fanny’s mind and spirit were indomitable in the face of dismissal and discouragement. Because of that, we have today a treasure trove of beautiful music that she wrote. (Here’s another recommended sample of it.) But how much better it would have been for her and her music if she had been encouraged, as her brother was, instead of dismissed. She might even have received more credit for her own work!

A creative gift like that of Fanny Mendelssohn is, as Dorothy L. Sayers put it in “The Mind of the Maker,” a reflection of the image of God, who gave us His own “desire and . . . ability to make things.” It follows, then, that to suppress or limit someone’s ability to use such a gift for arbitrary reasons is an offense to the God who gave her that gift. What her family saw as good reason to hold her back was nothing more than cultural convention — and, as we’ve established, that’s a pretty poor foundation to build a worldview on, particularly when it comes to gender issues.

Perhaps it’s appropriate that Fanny’s newly discovered authorship was of an Easter Sonata. The correct attribution of her work after all this time is a resurrection — and a reminder that the God who created the genders gives good gifts, without restraint, to both.

Special thanks to Warren Cole Smith and Roberto Rivera. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog, and the author of “One by One: Welcoming the Singles in Your Church” (Baker, June 2017).

‘Beauty and the Beast’: A Tale Old and New

 DISNEY'S NEW REMAKE PLAYS WITH OUR EXPECTATIONS IN SURPRISING WAYS

Try to watch Disney’s new live-action version of “Beauty and the Beast” with a completely clear and open mind. I dare you.

To begin with, it’s based on an animated film that’s still near and dear to our hearts. The fact that it came out before today’s kids were even born (thanks for the reminder of my age, Disney!) makes no difference: The generations ahead of them loved it, and made sure that younger generations saw it and loved it too. A new film that has to deal with the legacy of such a beloved older film is facing a daunting challenge.

Then there were the expectations, hopes, and fears of various segments of society. When director Bill Condon said in an interview that LeFou, the villain’s sidekick, would have a “gay moment,” he tossed a lit match into an already explosive atmosphere. A nation that had been fighting over the definition of marriage and who should use what bathroom started fighting over LGBT characters in children’s movies.  That wasn’t the only gender- or sex-related controversy, either; when lead actress Emma Watson talked about reinterpreting the character of Belle for 21st-century viewers, some observers complained about “bumper sticker feminism and ‘girl power.’“

And then the movie actually came out, and the reactions all over social media — ranging from distaste to euphoria — were so emphatic, so insistent, that by the time I settled into my seat at the movie theater, it was all I could do to shove all the hubbub out of my head and simply watch the movie as a movie. I could feel the weight of all those expectations about what I should think and feel about every moment of it.

It’s strangely appropriate, then, that the film itself deals with expectations — good ones and bad ones, those that hold us back and those that lift us up. Each of the titular characters has felt the pressure of different kinds of expectations and responded differently.

The prince-turned-Beast — as we see in a new and highly stylized opening sequence, in which everyone is tricked out in the height of 18th-century French fashion — fails to live up to the most basic standards of decency and kindness, bringing his punishment upon himself. Belle, by contrast, faces the suffocating weight of unfair expectations in her small village — and this film does an even better job than the original of creating a truly claustrophobic environment there — but manages to transcend them through the power of an intelligent mind and a caring heart. There’s nothing offensively radical about the work she does with her father, or on her own, or about her desire to teach little girls to read — only a generosity and strength of spirit that would look good on any woman, in any age.

Where the new film is weakest is when it tries too hard to emulate the old film, such as in the big ensemble numbers like “Gaston” and “Be Our Guest.” While the original versions felt fresh, even spontaneous, the new ones generally felt simply like the rehashes they were. And while the CGI in the new film was about as well done as CGI can be, in many ways I preferred the animation of the old film. Still, strong performances by Emma Watson, Dan Stevens as the Beast, and a gifted supporting cast, against some breathtaking indoor and outdoor backdrops, make up for a lot.

Additionally, this telling of the story makes a strong case for the need for a good father. Both lead characters lost their mothers in childhood, but while Belle’s father protected and nurtured her, the prince’s cruel and selfish father turned his young son into a carbon copy of himself. This kind of fleshing out of characters, motives, and relationships is what the new “Beauty and the Beast” does best. For a film weighed down by expectations, there are unexpectedly thoughtful and nuanced moments and ideas throughout.

For instance, the formerly illiterate Beast is now well-educated and well-read, but — even in a film with lots of points to make about the importance of education and reading –this wasn’t enough to save him from becoming a bad person. Only learning to love someone else and put her first can change him. And then there was the shop of the bookseller, one of the few kind people in Belle’s town — with a giant crucifix on the wall.*

Suffice it to say, one sometimes got the feeling that there were deeper forces at work here than many had expected. Though in a story about grace, forgiveness, and transformed hearts, perhaps that’s what we should have expected.

But what about that moment that many Christians were concerned about? Well, it’s just that — a moment. Two moments, to be precise. Before that, everything that LeFou (Josh Gad) says to and about Gaston (Luke Evans) is so ambiguous that it could be interpreted as coming from a place of friendship. Not a healthy friendship, to be sure, but then it never was that, even in the original. And Gaston’s villainy this time is ramped up to the point where even LeFou becomes disgusted.

In the final sequences of the film, we see one man who looks happy to end up dressed in women’s clothes after a fight with a wardrobe, and we see LeFou look happy to end up (very briefly) dancing with a man during an extended dance sequence. From what the director told us about his intentions, it’s clear what this means, but kids’ interpretations and responses will probably depend on what they’ve already been taught. The moments pass so quickly that many kids may not catch on at all. (Some of my colleagues have identified other moments that they see as suggestive; I respect their judgment, but I can only tell you what I saw and the way I think that kids might see it.)

Of course it’s crucial that Christians advocate for our beliefs about God’s design for sexuality, and guide and protect our children. And of course we’re called upon to evaluate the worldviews, healthy and otherwise, of the culture around us. But at some level, a movie is just a movie, and deserves to be taken on its own merits, not buried under the weight of too many aesthetic and cultural expectations. And when viewed in that light, “Beauty and the Beast,” despite some flaws, has much to offer. Perhaps it’s a sign of common grace that even an entertainment industry dominated by some damaging worldviews can still give us glimpses of true beauty.

*Update: The person from whom Belle borrowed books was actually a priest. I didn’t catch this at the time because of the way he was dressed, but one of our commenters pointed it out to me, and Disney Wiki confirms it.

Image copyright Walt Disney Pictures.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog, and the author of “One by One: Welcoming the Singles in Your Church” (Baker, June 2017).

Art, Reframed

 

MAKOTO FUJIMURA INVITES US TO CHOOSE ‘CULTURE CARE’ OVER CULTURE WARS

3/7/2017

The culture wars we have with us always. That’s the conventional wisdom, anyway. The cultural front must be considered just that, a front — the scene for endless battles between the forces of morality and the forces of immorality. Though Christians know that Christ will ultimately have the victory, in the meantime we must contest every bloody inch of the cultural battleground, striking back — or striking preemptively — wherever the enemy appears to be gaining a foothold. Whether it’s a movie that needs boycotting, or a celebrity who needs calling out, we must always be ready to mobilize and fight.

But sometimes the conventional wisdom is wrong.

In his book “Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life,” Makoto Fujimura makes a strong case for an entirely different kind of cultural engagement. Fujimura is an artist, writer, and committed Christian. He is the founder of the International Arts Movement, and serves as director of the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts at Fuller Theological Seminary.

In short, he spends a great deal of his time dealing with the relationship between faith and art, and helping other Christians to understand it better. Thus, he and his work serve as a bridge between two communities that are very often at odds with each other.

From his long experience in this role, Fujimura has drawn the conclusion that “cultural fragmentation” and the ideological polarization that goes with it are among the great crises of our time. Yet as serious as it is, he believes we can find a way out of that crisis if we learn to look at culture through a new framework. He puts it this way: “Culture is not a territory to be won or lost but a resource we are called to steward with care. Culture is a garden to be cultivated.” (Emphasis in original.)

If we allow our thinking to shift in this direction, we begin to get a whole new perspective on culture. It doesn’t matter less than we thought; it matters more, because it’s the environment in which we all live, and our emotional, moral, and spiritual health depends in large part on its health. But we also start to see that constant cultural hatreds and battles don’t help to restore that environment. Instead, they pollute it.

Fujimura uses a wealth of images from nature to convey his points — comparing culture not just to a garden, but also to an estuary, “a complex system with a multiplicity of dynamic influences and tributaries . . . [with] many nurturing — but not isolated — habitats.” But the main image he keeps coming back to again and again is that of a simple bouquet of flowers that his wife, Judy, once brought home in the early days of their marriage, when the two of them were struggling to get by. To his shocked question about how she could spend money on flowers instead of food, Judy simply responded, “We need to feed our souls, too.”

Those words, Fujimura writes, have been “etched in my heart for over thirty years now.”

Culture exists to feed our souls, which God designed to need beauty and grace. But then, why has the relationship between the church and artists become increasingly toxic? Why are the two camps increasingly hostile toward each other?

As a man with a foot in both camps, Fujimura identifies faults in each. The church, he observes, often doesn’t know what to do with the artists in its midst. They have a way of seeing the world differently, of asking uncomfortable questions, of not fitting neatly into preconceived categories. (He cites the well-known examples of Emily Dickinson and Vincent van Goth, both of whom had severely strained relationships with the church.)

So artists are pressured to conform, and if they don’t, they tend to be pushed aside and devalued. Artists, in turn, react to marginalization with ever more transgressive and shocking ideas and behavior, which push the church even further from them.

To stop this vicious circle, Fujimura proposes a new model for those who love the church and the arts:

Recently I was speaking with my colleague and collaborator Bruce Herman. He introduced me to an Old English word used in Beowulf: mearcstapas, translated “border-walkers” or “border-stalkers.” In the tribal realities of earlier times, these were individuals who lived on the edges of their groups, going in and out of them, sometimes bringing back news to the tribe.

He uses Strider in “The Lord of the Rings” as an example of a mearcstapa: “It is in large part his ability to move in and out of tribes and boundaries that makes him an indispensable guide and protector and that helps him become an effective leader, fulfilling his destiny as Aragorn, high king of Gondor and Arnor, uniting two kingdoms.” The mearcstapa may seem a marginal figure, but he or she in fact can be playing “a role of cultural leadership in a new mode, serving functions including empathy,  memory, warning, guidance, mediation, and reconciliation.”

Fujimura offers some practical suggestions for would-be mearcstapas who want to practice culture care, whether they work in the arts, or in business, or elsewhere. I would have liked even more such suggestions, but his ideas for how artists can bless their culture and how others can support and nurture artists — spiritually, emotionally, and financially — are an excellent place to start. His fervent belief that we can make our present cultural crisis into a “genesis moment” is convincing and inspiring. This book is an invaluable guide to how we can nourish our cultural soil and plant good seeds that will contribute to the “common life” of us all.

For Further Reading:

Gina Dalfonzo, “Hope in the Silence: Makoto Fujimura Sheds New Light on a Classic Novel,” BreakPoint.org, August 26, 2016.

Image copyright IVP Books. Review copy obtained from the publisher.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog, and the author of “One by One: Welcoming the Singles in Your Church” (Baker, June 2017).

A Genius for Living

 

‘GENIUS’ PAINTS AN UNUSUAL, MOVING PORTRAIT OF A QUIET MAN

7/14/16

When you hear the word “genius,” what comes to mind? Perhaps an Einstein or a Beethoven, with wild eyes and wild hair, living in a constant fever of creative energy. With such an image, in general, comes a host of other images — of someone who insists on living with unbounded freedom, free of restraints or burdens, able to act and create just as he or she sees fit. And with that are bound up a whole bundle of slightly less savory ideas: neglected families, overburdened friends, unpaid debts, unmet obligations . . . all the fallout from unlimited freedom that winds up making others less free.

Is this how it has to be? One movie, based on a true story, suggests otherwise.

“Genius” tells the story of Max Perkins (played by Colin Firth), editor to some of the 20th century’s greatest literary superstars. When you have F. Scott Fitzgerald (Guy Pearce), Ernest Hemingway (Dominic West), and — with the most screentime of them all — Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law) in your movie, it’s a provocative move to apply the label “genius” to a mere editor, and especially to such a quiet, conventional figure as Perkins. But the movie slowly and compellingly builds its case for that designation.

We meet Perkins relatively late in his career, after he’s already had many successes as a discoverer and nurturer of talent. Enter the young Wolfe, who couldn’t possibly be more like our usual conception of a genius that I’ve described above — or more different from Perkins. Hair flying, words tumbling out in a thick Southern accent, Wolfe begs Perkins to consider a massive manuscript that has already been rejected by many other publishers. When Perkins consents to do so, he sees something in the book that none of those other publishers have. We see him absorbed in the manuscript all the way home and well into the night.

But agreeing to take on the new author lets Perkins in for some daunting responsibilities.

Before the film came out, plenty of naysayers complained that a film about an editor couldn’t possibly be interesting. I like to think that most of us editors knew better all along. As Perkins and Wolfe labor over the manuscript that will become “Look Homeward, Angel,” we get some fascinating glimpses of the formation of a masterpiece, learning that it’s as much a matter of cutting and shaping as it is of writing.

But if you’re into more conventional drama, there’s plenty of that as well, with Perkins finding himself caught up in Wolfe’s turbulent life. Not only he is a demanding, self-absorbed, and very noisy workaholic, Wolfe is also embroiled in an affair with Aline Bernstein (Nicole Kidman), a married costume designer many years his senior. Under the pressure of life with the mercurial Wolfe, her stability is slowly giving way, and she’s given to delivering dire warnings to Perkins — occasionally accompanied by threats at gunpoint — about what he’s let himself in for.

Aline may be unstable, but she’s not wrong. Though Perkins and Wolfe become friends during the editing of “Angel,” their friendship will ultimately be strained by their great differences. Not just at the office but also at home, Perkins is such a straitlaced, buttoned-down type that he wears his hat all the time, even when he’s in his pajamas. He’s an absentminded but ultimately loving husband and father, and a steadfast friend.

As Fitzgerald tells Wolfe, offering an intriguing twist on the movie’s title, Perkins has “a genius of friendship.” But Wolfe will test that friendship in every way possible, ultimately rejecting the very things that made Perkins so valuable to him and his work: his good judgment, wisdom, and restraint. As Aline was already beginning to learn at the start of the film, Wolfe’s is the sort of genius that uses people up and throws them aside. But that ultimately hurts him even more than it hurts them.

When Wolfe accuses Perkins of being “scared to live,” Perkins, his patience exhausted, snaps back, “There are other ways to live!” This is one of the greatest insights of a film that’s filled with them: It’s not always the artist spewing rapid-fire ideas about living life to the full who really understands what that means. Sometimes it’s the man who devotes himself to serving others and striving for excellence in all areas of life. To put it in a way familiar to many of us Christians, he who loses his life shall find it.

With a terrific script by John Logan based on A. Scott Berg’s biography, and anchored by strong performances from Firth, Law, Kidman, Laura Linney (as Perkins’ wife), and others, “Genius” justifies its title. It’s a moving portrait of a man whose genius, though it may have manifested itself in unconventional ways, was very real and a blessing to all those around him.

Image copyright Roadside Attractions. “Genius” is rated PG-13 for some thematic elements and suggestive content.

Gina Dalfonzo is an editor for BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog.

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