To
read Jeffrey's conversation with writer/director Ed Solomon,
click here.
For more on the interesting story behind the film, check out the story
at
The Los Angeles Times. Robert W. Welkos illuminates how
funding was raised for Levity and
the role that Pat Boone played in its development.
Yes... THAT Pat Boone.
Ed Solomon is a moviemaker with a lot on his mind.
Faith. Healing. Forgiveness. Hope. The nature of God. Honesty.
Relationships.
In his directorial debut, he takes it all on,
telling a story about characters heavily burdened with life’s hardships.
And he calls it Levity. An unlikely title for such a somber film,
but it makes sense—it’s what his characters are
looking for in their various ways. Should they be seeking happiness, which is temporary and
based on the immediate circumstance, or should they be looking for joy?
And how does one find lasting, sustaining joy?
Hard to believe this is the same writer who brought
us the Bill and Ted comedies and Men in Black. But
Levity feels like the work of someone who has been bottling up his
burning questions for a long long time.
Thus, the film is ponderous—too ponderous, perhaps.
Like last year’s exploration of ethics and hope, Thirteen
Conversations About One Thing, Levity gives us several
characters weighted down by different burdens. In
this world, there's no time for talk of who won last night's game or the
weather. Redemption. Forgiveness. God. These are the day's headlines.
Manual Jordan (Billy Bob Thornton) comes out of
prison after 22 years of paying for his crime. As a
teen, he murdered a convenience
store clerk during a robbery. Now, heavy-hearted,
feeling like a ghost (and
looking like one with his long silver hair), he wanders back to the scene of the
crime. There he stumbles into the lives of three other
angst-heavy individuals.
One is Miles Evans (Morgan Freeman), a grouchy
minister who preaches to young people in the inner city. Evans is a
secretive man, ready to dish out passages of Scripture to those who will
listen. But nobody needs to heed that advice more than the one preaching
it. Evans gives Manual a room and a job, and the two start a tenuous
relationship. The more Evans takes interest in helping Manual, the more
he reveals about his own fears and disillusionment. We haven’t seen a
preacher so complicated and conflicted since Robert Duvall’s The
Apostle.
One of the youngsters drawn to Evans’s ministry is
Sofia (Kirsten Dunst). She’s as reckless and foul-mouthed as Dunst’s
crazy/beautiful character, a wreck of a woman who wants to party so
she won’t have to think about her miserable home life. Sofia’s mother
was once a popular singer, but now she’s a drunk, staggering around the
house, a zombie in a bathrobe, a wreck of self-absorption and bad
choices. Sofia’s headed for self-destruction fast, and Manual can see
that as clearly as Evans. Manual finds himself reluctantly carrying
Sofia from the wreckage of a bad night, and this simple act of kindness
forges a bond between them that is stronger than they care to admit.
Then there is Adele Easley (Holly Hunter), the
hard-shelled older sister of Manual’s murder victim. Manual finds her
and sets out to bring her some kind of blessing,
presenting himself as a benevolent stranger who seemingly dropped from
the sky. At first he is acting
out of a sense of moral responsibility. But Adele is gorgeous,
and Holly
Hunter makes her sexy, temperamental, and tough. She spends most of her screen time flirting with Manual from behind
strands of her long red hair; before long
he is a little bit
smitten. Should he tell her about his crime? Or should he let the past
remain buried and see what good he can do? Adele’s son is a reckless
youth, and Manual can see the boy plunging toward consequences similar
to those he suffered. Clearly, events are conspiring to bring Manual an
opportunity to prevent the very sort of destruction he once committed.
It’s a complicated movie with a deeply furrowed
brow. It’s also the most spiritually exploratory American film in a
while. You can sense that Manual and Evans are voicing questions that
compel Solomon in his own search. The story is a wrestling match, a
fierce questioning: Could there be a God that cares enough to forgive?
And even if He could, do we deserve such forgiveness? Can we do enough
good in the world to make up for our sins? In view of our failures and
flaws, how should we live?
It is worth noting that Evans,
for all of his sermons, is still greatly troubled... and the reason will
probably be clear to any viewers familiar with the Gospel message. Evans
never talks about Jesus. He does not understand the idea of grace. Both
Manual and Evans are
convinced that they do not deserve forgiveness… and they are
right. None of us deserve forgiveness. The Scriptures state the obvious:
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Jesus
declared that he had arrived
to proclaim the free gift of salvation,
available to anyone who believed him and his offer. God is setting an example
for us, giving us what we don’t deserve, because he loves us. And the
power of love can heal us from our wounds, both those inflicted by the
world and those we inflicted up on ourselves. In view of such a message,
we can find the strength to forgive others and ourselves, and we
can go on to offer such grace to others.
The characters in Levity are almost there…
they are learning to reach out to each other and offer each other grace
and forgiveness… They are granting each other privileges they do not
deserve. If broken, selfish human beings can muster such behavior,
surely it might be possible that the God who made them and who came to
live among them might be able to grant them forgiveness for things that
others cannot. Perhaps Manual is taking his first
steps toward real healing.
Solomon’s cast takes this solemn material and
invests their characters with sincerity and subtle humor. I was worried
that Manual’s constant, ponderous expressions would become inadvertently
funny, but then other characters starting commenting on it themselves.
Thornton (Monster’s Ball) is no stranger to playing characters
who try to right their own wrongs—and then fall in love with the
relatives of their victims. Holly Hunter (Living Out Loud)
has experience playing lonely, bold women ready to take a chance on love. And
Morgan Freeman has played the mentor countless times. Of the three,
Freeman shines most brightly, giving Evans a growl and a temper we
haven’t heard from the actor before. The way he snarls his dialogue is
something we’d more readily expect from Samuel Jackson than the wise man of Seven, The Sum of All Fears, and
Unforgiven.
Perhaps the foremost delight Levity offers
is the chance to see cinematographer Roger Deakins at work. He finds
drama in light and shadow, in the silhouettes of city buildings against
a night sky, in the cold solitude of a cell or a basement apartment,
that accentuates the spiritual emptiness these characters are feeling.
In a buffet of astonishingly bad movies released
this spring, Levity is an unexpected feast. Although the movie is
a bit too relentlessly meditative, heavy on talk and light on action, I
commend Mr. Solomon for going against the grain, for offering us a film
that grapples with tough issues at the soul-level, instead of selling us
feel-good lies or cynicism. I’ll take good questions over
cheap answers any day. The heroes of the faith were those who wrestled
with God, who took on the tough questions, who struggled and grew. I
hope we see more from this storyteller. I’d be very interested in seeing
his characters get past the futility of trying to earn their own
redemption through random acts of kindness—I’d love to see them discover
the possibility of grace.
Grace does not offer us all of
the answers, but it allows us the joy... the relief... the levity
of thrilling in the journey, assured of a wonderful destination.
In that grace lies the light that all of these lost
souls are seeking. Jeffrey's Rating: B+
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for an explanation of ratings.
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