The Painted Veil

How do we deal with our failures, our imperfections, our sins? Do we move past them and make efforts to live better lives or do we dwell on them, allowing them to be shackles which tie us down and hold us back from the future? How about the people whom we have sinned against? Do they allow us to move on? Do they forgive us and continue on themselves or do they punish us every chance that they get in order that we can never forget what we have done?

“The Painted Veil” is not a fast-moving film. It slowly and deliberately weaves its story from the present day of the film’s setting to past events which led up to this point. Kitty is a twenty-something young woman who is reaching the age where people begin to talk about the fact that she is not married. Walter is a successful bacteriologist (sounds exciting, huh?) who develops an eye for Kitty. Walter asks to marry Kitty and, more to quell the rumors and gossip about her than because of love, Kitty agrees.

Not too long into the marriage, Kitty and Walter go to the theater in China with the Townsends. Charlie Townsend and Kitty develop a relationship and soon begin an affair together. Walter discovers the affair and to punish Kitty, volunteers to go to a remote village to help in the treatment and research of a cholera epidemic that is happening there. Kitty thinks that Walter is crazy to even suggest that she come with him and he gives her the ultimatum that if she does not come, he will divorce her.

Walter gives Kitty one other option, he will divorce her quietly should Charlie agree to leave his wife and marry her instead. Thinking this a perfect opportunity, Kitty runs to Charlie and expects that he will agree to the plan, but she is heartbroken and left feeling alone.

Walter tells Kitty, “I knew when I married you that you were spoiled and selfish.” To which she replies, If a man hasn’t what’s necessary to make a woman love him, then it’s his fault, not hers.” She also wonders why he would have married her if he knew that was the way that she was. She asks him, “Aren’t you as much to blame for what’s happened as I?”

Isn’t this the way that we get when we disagree? We begin to justify our own actions claiming that it must have been the other person who is to blame for the mess that we find ourselves in. We become so blinded by our deceitfulness that we are completely incapable of seeing our own imperfections.

But we also go into relationships with delusions of grandeur, considering that we have the power to change a person’s passions and desires. We fool ourselves into thinking that a person can love us so much that they would be willing to sacrifice all that they are for love. While I would agree that there is some possibility to that, we need to approach those situations with an amount of realism, understanding that there are some commonalities that are essential in order that relationships, especially between husbands and wives, can work.

According to relationship psychotherapist Paula Hall, the top five things that couples argue about are (and roughly in this order): Money, Sex, Work, Children, and Housework. I would venture to guess that religion may make its way into the top ten. If there is not a commonality between couples on these five things, things can go sour very quickly.

Walter is so focused on his work and approaches his relationship with Kitty and others in a very scientific manner. Kitty says, “We humans are more complex than your silly, little microbes. We’re unpredictable, we make mistakes, and we disappoint.” Kitty wonders how long Walter will continue to punish her for her actions.

The film continues to play out the relationship between Kitty and Walter as they live an existence free of intimacy or conversation. They peacefully exist, neither giving the other any mind. Eventually, Kitty can bear it no more and she begins to take an interest in Walter’s work. Walter is justifiably skeptical as he wonders what her plan is. In the midst of Kitty’s growing understanding of what her husband does, she begins to see what is lovable about him and, likewise, him her. The two form a relationship of love rather than convenience.

So as not to spoil the entire plotline, I won’t reveal much more. What I will say is that this story is reminiscent of the biblical story of Hosea. Of course, there are differences as well, but the end result is the same: redemption. How does one find redemption from their past mistakes? How do we find the grace to extend to those who have hurt or injured us in order that they might experience that same redemption?

The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 103:11-12, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” For imperfect humans, we have a hard time understanding how we could be forgiven for the many ways that we have fallen short. We can’t seem to understand how that gift of grace can come without any payment on our part. But if payment is required, it isn’t grace.

Walter learns to love Kitty and vice versa. There is nothing simple or pretty about the process of restoration. Both sides go into the process with an attitude that can barely even be classified as reluctance. Our stubbornness prevents us from changing, even if that change is for our own good. The same was true of Walter and Kitty. They had to move past the past in order to find hope for the future.

In a culture where marriage is hardly a sacred institution and where divorce is prevalent, even among people who hold to the truth of Scripture, what will it take for us to make efforts in relationships? What will it take to uphold the vows and commitments that are made in wedding ceremonies as unbreakable, rather than flexible? The road to redemption, regardless of from what, is rarely easy. It takes time, it takes commitment, and it will involve pain. But we have received grace from a God who has recklessly pursued us in spite of our imperfections, He has not given up, He has not abandoned us.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I am not naïve in thinking that sticking your nose to the grindstone alone is enough to repair a broken or failing marriage. But do we have faith that God can bring about restoration and redemption? By the grace of God, I have not been in the position of having to ask that question, and I pray that I never will be, but I do know that God is the God of second chances, He never abandons or forsakes His own. Can we trust that what God has brought together no man or woman may separate or will we continue to live as if marriage is as expendable as everything else in our lives?

Up in the Air

In the first few moments of “Up in the Air” we see a montage of people who have just been fired as they react to the news. They express their emotions. They talk about their track record, their history with the company, their loyalty, and their service. They are responding to Ryan Bingham and the news that he has brought them, the news that they are fired. Ryan Bingham works for a company that is hired by people who don’t have the backbone to do the firing themselves. So, regardless of the loyalty that these employees have shown, regardless of the amount of time that they have worked for the company, they are shown the door and offered a moderate severance package.

Ryan has come up with a more “personal” method of “letting people go.” He always offers them the encouragement that, “Anybody who ever built an empire or changed the world sat where you are right now. And it’s because they sat there that they were able to do it.” He also tells them, “This is not an assessment of your productivity. Try not to take this personally.”

Ryan’s life is on the road, in hotels and rental cars. He spends 322 days on the road to avoid anything more than the 43 miserable days that he has to spend at his institutional apartment in Omaha, Nebraska. He has fallen out of touch with his family, his parents are deceased, and he is coming to his sister’s wedding as a guest, not a family member. He’s never been married himself because he’s never seen the point. Ryan will only invest in things that will benefit him, in life and in business. He is surrounded by people every day, but he is alone.

Although he’s alone, he is loyal. Ryan prides himself on his loyalty. When he reaches into his wallet, instead of family pictures, he pulls out frequent flyer cards, loyal customer cards, frequent renter cards, and an assortment of cards that indicate to the world that he has been dedicated to these companies and he fully deserves all of the perks that he receives from them.

“Up in the Air” is a movie about relationships and loyalty. It’s a movie that calls to question the things in which we invest our lives. What do we have to show for those investments? Ryan says that relationships are the heaviest things in our lives and if we carry them, they slow us down. “The slower we move, the faster we die.” Over the course of the movie, Ryan connects with a woman named Alex who seems to have chosen the same lifestyle as he has. They compare their loyal customer cards the way others would compare pictures of their children and family. They begin an informal and convenient relationship that Ryan eventually wants to take to the next level.

After being chastised by Natalie Keener, a young Cornell graduate who is single-handedly upending his company’s business approach which results in a threat to Ryan’s lifestyle, he realizes that he wants something more in his relationship with Alex. He makes his way to her home in Chicago to see her and we come to what I feel is the most ironic event in the film. Ryan is faced with the fact that he has finally allowed himself to be emotionally vulnerable only to find that he was just “an escape, a break from our normal lives, a parentheses.” The woman to which he had connected with over loyalty has shattered him he finds that his standard of loyalty has not been returned.

In the last few moments of the film we see Ryan standing before the departures board at the airport. He has diverted from his path, but it has ultimately become just an escape and parentheses from the life that he now chooses to go back to: a disconnected life. The movie ends in the manner in which it began, with a montage of interviews from the very same people who had been fired. This time they are talking about how they were able to get through. They talk about their friends and their families and how important they are to them. If they hadn’t had that support structure in place, they never would have made it.

“Up in the Air” is a movie that haunted me every moment after I had seen it for the first time. It speaks to our non-committal culture and generation. It presents us with two very different kinds of loyalty: loyalty to yourself and loyalty to the people who love you. Our lives are full of choices, every decision can be made with ourselves in mind or with the people who love us in mind. What are we loyal to? Who are we loyal to? When the chips come down, if we find ourselves jobless or homeless, will we be friendless and abandoned as well? Despite the heaviness of the relationships in our lives and the fact that they might slow us down, are they worth it?

In another ironic moment in the film, Ryan is charged with speaking some sense into his sister’s fiancé who has called off their wedding. This man who has never made the commitment of marriage needs to convince someone that it’s the right thing to do. To me, it was this turning point more than his encounter with Natalie that drove Ryan to pursue Alex the way that he did. He asks his future brother-in-law about all of the important memories and events in his life and asks whether he was alone or not. Ryan realizes what a lonely existence that he has had.

The movie isn’t saying that we need to be married to be happy, but it is saying that we need relationships, with family, with friends. Those relationships need to be deeper than just “hello.” True relationships are an investment. We expend time, energy, money, and resources on our relationships and we have to determine whether or not we think it’s worth it. Personally, I wouldn’t trade the relationships and friendships that I have more all the money in the world. No amount of frequent flyer miles or loyal customer points could ever compare with flesh and blood and raw emotion.

What about you? Are your relationships important to you? Are you investing in the things that matter or things that will just make you temporarily happy? I always tell my wife that we’re better together. We try to do things alone, but when we team up, it always ends up better than if we had done it on our own. To quote LOST, “Live together. Die alone.”

Getting started!

Movies are one of my passions. I love to watch movies that make me think. Spend any time in conversation with me and that conversation will most likely end up on the topic of movies at some point.

After having conversations with enough of my friends, they said that if I started a movie blog, they would read it. Maybe they were just being nice and no one will read it, but I'm starting it anyway. I hope someone reads it, other than me.

I'm going to try to post as often as I can. I am also going to try to stick with movies that really have impacted me or made me think, but suggestions are welcome.

Not sure when the first movie post will come, but be on the lookout!