DVD Review: Fearless

It's time to take a break from merely responding to others' blogs and to write something original. Last night, I had an odd cinematic experience in the form of Fearless, the 1993 Peter Weir film starring Jeff Bridges, Isabella Rossellini, and Rosie Perez. Bridges plays Max Klein, a San Francisco-based architect, who has a near-mystical experience as the plane in which he is traveling loses control and begins spiraling towards the ground. He suddenly develops a serene mindset and a confidence that this would not be his day to die. He leverages this confidence in order to comfort his fellow passengers, and when the plane does crash, he guides the survivors to safety and earns a reputation as a Good Samaritan.

Most of the movie explores how Klein attempts to deal with both his mystical vision and his survival of the crash. On the one hand, he feels invincible: He stared death in the face and lived to tell the tale. As such, he feels estranged from his old relationships (e.g., his wife, Laura [Rossellini]); since they have not "overcome" death, then they clearly cannot share in his heightened state of consciousness.

Klein also develops an odd relationship (affair?) with a fellow survivor, Carla Rodrigo (Perez), who lost her two-year-old son in the crash. Rodrigo, a Roman Catholic, struggles with her guilt and her faith, finding therapeutic camraderie in the agnostic/atheist Klein.

This camraderie seems to form the crux of Klein's post-crash existence, as his raison d'etre becomes helping Rodrigo. At the same time, however, we learn that he is grappling with his own unfinished business with God; his agnosticism/atheism appears to serve merely as a front for a deeper theological struggle. He did have a vision, after all; he did survive the crash; and he seems to be living in a quasi-mystical state. From where could that come but the Divine?

I have two relatively minor critiques of this film. First, I occassionally felt that Weir was trying too hard to make a "deep" movie; his presentation of themes felt a little overworked. (This may be a pattern: Another film in which Weir "tried too hard" was The Truman Show.) Secondly, while I sensed that he was trying to be deep, I couldn't pinpoint what, exactly, Weir was trying to say (hence, my "odd" feelings about the film). I don't know much about the man, so I couldn't tell whether he was making an explicitly theological statement or was just talking generally about "spiritual" things.

Nevertheless, even though it is not a brilliant piece of cinema, Fearless is thoughtul and definitely worth your time and money. Final Score: 7 out of 10.

P.S. While Jeff Bridges produces a solid performance in this film (not brilliant, but solid), we all know where to find the true pinnacle of his acting career!