Gone Baby Gone: Bad Mother! No Kid for You!

This review was originally published on cinekklesia on February 28, 2008.

A friend at work recently castigated me for noting how different the career trajectories have been for Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, even though they both made their (early) claims to fame with Good Will Hunting. According to my friend, Matt has no special talents of note, so any denigration of Ben is simply unwarranted. I'll grant that Matt Damon is not a great actor—decent but nothing to write home about—but doesn't he have a little more to brag about than his cinematic colleague? After all, Matt didn't get involved in projects like Reindeer Games and Gigli. (I admit that I haven't seen either one — but do I need to?)

Thus, I was mildly hesitant to rent Gone Baby Gone (2007), Affleck's directorial debut. However, Netflix's algorithm assured me that based on my ratings of other films, I would enjoy this thriller, and the algorithm (again) proved correct. Like any good crime drama that goes beyond the salacious, Gone Baby Gone works on different levels: one can enjoy it as a simple kidnapping tale with unexpected twists and turns, or one can appreciate the moral quandary of its main character, who must contend with the question of who is "good enough" to care for their own children. At any level, Gone Baby Gone serves as a hopeful sign that Mr. Affleck's career has some promising days ahead.

In our movie, the director's brother, Casey, plays Patrick Kenzie, a Boston-based private investigator who specializes in hunting down debt-ridden deadbeats. He and his girlfriend/investigative partner, Angie (Michelle Monaghan), are commissioned to conduct a supplemental investigation into the kidnapping of Amanda McCready (Madeline O'Brien) — something for which they have no prior experience. I say "supplemental" because the police are already conducting their own investigation, but Amanda's aunt, Bea (Amy Madigan), wants the PIs to rummage through Boston's underworld—those who would have nothing to do with the cops (at least voluntarily)—in order to dig for more information. Patrick soon finds himself a wee bit over his head, as his snooping turns up inconvenient facts that make this simple kidnapping case anything but.

You'll notice that I mentioned the victim's aunt as the one who sought out the private investigators. You see, the girl's mother, Helene (Amy Ryan, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance), isn't quite up to snuff. She likes to drink. She likes to carouse. She's a barfly with a foul mouth. She's also known in the neighborhood as the powder-cocaine equivalent of the proverbial "crack whore." She also happens to be Amanda's legal guardian.

Besides fear of the terrible things that potentially await Amanda, the audience is invited to feel disgust at Helene. Right at the beginning, we question her maternal fitness when we see Amanda's room: bare, dreary, and not particularly well lit (Patrick jokingly questions whether the assailants took off with the furniture, as well). Throughout the course of Gone Baby Gone, we learn more of Helene's regular interactions with Boston's seedier elements and realize that Amanda's pre-kidnapping environment was, to put it nicely, not particularly healthy.

Thus, our movie cleverly presents us with an inverse relationship: as its mysteries slowly untangle and become more clear, the moral conundrums become thornier. Specifically: Who has the rightful claim to parenthood? By default, we privilege biological parents, which intuitively makes sense. However, we also have come to take claims of child abuse and neglect very seriously, and Americans are well aware of cases in which the state wrests a child from a bad home for his/her "own good." (The recent drama surrounding Britney Spears' parenting—or lack thereof—is perhaps the most famous example.)

Yet, even as the characters confront the question of parental rights, Gone Baby Gone presents us with a relatively simple characterization of Helene, one that makes it easy for audience members to judge her as horribly deficient. However, that characterization masks an underlying ambiguity. After all, one's fitness for parenting is an ultimately arbitrary question. Where does one draw the line between the acceptable and unacceptable caregiver? As the totalitarian reach of the nanny state grows, this question becomes more important since there is no logical limit to the criteria that governments can establish for "proper" parenting. If a father lets his child drink two liters of Coke a day, should the local DSS raid his house? How about a mother who is a member of Ku Klux Klan and who teaches racist ideology at home? Is she, in some way, a danger to her children?

On a related vein, the question of whether biology should take primacy is also arbitrary. As mentioned, we tend to privilege biological parents, but as we see with Helene, nature is no guarantee of good nurture. It is disconcerting that we make the process of adoption so onerous—even for parents who have the means and the desire to raise a child—while implicitly assuming that those who have a kid the old-fashioned way are "ready" for parenthood. When one hears of cases of biological parenting gone awry, one can't help but wonder whether our obsession with genetic primacy is actually harmful for children.

While family-related issues are thorny, it is interesting how most of the characters in Gone Baby Gone easily make up their minds in the case of Helene and move on with their lives. It is the lead character, Patrick Kenzie, who evinces an inner struggle, unsatisfied with the options before him but nevertheless compelled to make a moral decision (or at least to choose the lesser evil). Because Patrick cares so deeply about this case, he ultimately becomes undone by it, proving the cynical wisdom of Clare Boothe Luce's famous quotation: "No good deed goes unpunished."

So it appears that a talented artist resides in Ben Affleck after all. In Gone Baby Gone, he has crafted an engaging crime thriller with the requisite lowlifes, crooked cops, and downbeat ambience — along with some probing moral questions. Here's hoping that Mr. Affleck continues to produce fine films in his post-J. Lo phase.

The Gleaners and I: The Ethics of Dumpster Diving

This review was published originally on cinekklesia on February 12, 2008.

For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do the same with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard" (Exodus 23:10-1, NRSV).

My wife has told me the story of a student at our alma mater who, in the course of her adolescence, never learned how to do laundry. When she got to college, she apparently had no idea what to do with clothes that she had just worn. Thus, she simply would throw them out and buy new ones. When the housekeeping staff learned of this, they took it upon themselves to teach the young woman how to use the university-provided washers and dryers.

Besides the discomfiting image of low-paid service personnel teaching a woman of privilege a basic hygienic practice, the story is shocking because of the sheer waste. Can you imagine throwing away clothes every week just to turn around and buy new ones? Even if one could afford to do so, it just seems so utterly stupid and disrespectful not to reuse something designed for the long haul. It's one thing not to finish all of the food on one's plate, but it's quite another not to launder one's underwear!

In its own distinct way, Agnès Varda's The Gleaners and I (2000)—a.k.a., Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse—tackles the question of waste from the perspective of those who fight against it, whether out of sheer necessity or for moral reasons. Using Jean-François Millet's famous 1857 painting as a springboard, Varda travels around France with her digital video camera, searching for modern gleaners in locales both rural and urban. She meets a wide array of people who are refreshingly honest about why they do what they do and who implicitly challenge us to consider our own wasteful habits.

Varda begins with gleaners of the traditional variety: those who pick the produce left behind after the harvesters have made their run. In the course of a regular harvest, both humans and machines leave behind vast amounts of food, whether due to oversight or aesthetics (after all, the produce that we see in our grocery stores has to be "pleasing to the eye"). The gleaners Varda runs into pick such food for a variety of reasons: some have perfectly stable finances but have fun picking free food (who said thrift was dead?), while others simply pick to survive. Varda focuses on one particular man, estranged from his family, living in a camper, and scrounging for food in fields and dumpsters. While he gleans out of necessity, he also learns quickly that the pickings aren't all that bad, especially the packaged foods that businesses so readily throw away to make room for new inventory.

The most interesting subjects in Varda's study are those who choose to eat discarded food for moral reasons. In Paris, Varda spends a lot of time with an intelligent man who seems as though he "should" be conventionally successful. Nevertheless, he lives in public housing, makes money by selling magazines to commuters, and consumes almost all of his calories from an outdoor market's leftover produce. Varda waits with her camera for the market to close and spots our underemployed subject, picking up food from the ground, packing much of it in his bag, and eating the rest "on the go." While his dining habits may make the stomachs of the queasy churn, he makes a good point that the food is still perfectly safe (it was just on sale an hour or two prior, after all). Why should it go to waste? (If you're interested in dumpster diving as an intentional lifestyle, then check out Wikipedia's article on Freeganism. Thanks to my wife for informing me of this ideology.)

Of course, France is not simply an agricultural nation, and transferring the idea of gleaning to a post-industrial society requires analyzing our non-food throwaways, as well. This part of dumpster diving is probably more agreeable, as it involves non-perishable items: clothes, furniture, electronics, and the like. Even though Web sites like eBay and craigslist have made it easier than ever to unload our old stuff on willing takers, we still pitch a lot. In Varda's movie, we meet a man who references a brochure containing his municipality's schedule for leaving large, discarded items on the curb. He then bikes to the relevant neighborhood at night and rummages through his fellow citizens' refuse before the garbage collectors arrive. (He has to be quick, though, since he spots other post-industrial gleaners on the prowl for free stuff.)

Of course, as with discarded food, the non-food items still have life left in them. Much of what we pitch isn't broken, per se — just old. Like businesses, we, too, make room for upgrades: new clothes for a new "life stage," new furniture for a new home, new computers with even more speed, memory, and features. The post-industrial gleaners take advantage of their fellow citizens' throwaway habits, finding objects both practical and whimsical amidst the rubble.

Yet, one cannot help but notice that these scavenging heroes are perhaps engaging in a vice of their own: hoarding. No, I'm not talking about hoarding in a greedy sense; rather, the desperate revulsion that the post-industrial gleaner experiences at the site of waste translates into a messy abode full of, well, trash. There's only so much "found art" that one can produce before the aesthetics of such art become overwhelmed by sheer clutter. While our wasteful lifestyles are scandalous, I'm not sure what purpose is served by scavenging for the sake of scavenging — after all, once the scavenger passes away, what happens to his/her pile of stuff?

Nevertheless, the gleaners—those who do it for survival and those who do it in protest—have an important lesson to teach us. By their very actions, they shine a light on the rest of us, giving us reason to pause, take stock (literally), and see what we could re-use, recycle, or give away. One of the scavengers in Varda's film argues that waste is a sign of disrespect for the worker who initially produced the items we're throwing away. I'll take it a step further and argue that waste is a sign of disrespect for God's Creation. I wouldn't say that dumpster diving is a morally necessary activity; however, it would be good to make sure that our dumpsters weren't so full in the first place.

Postscript

It appears that The Gleaners and I was quite a hit in France. Varda made a short sequel titled Two Years Later (available on the same disc), which followed up with the more memorable subjects from the original, while documenting the fun and quirky fan mail our director received.

Zoolander: Man of Substance?

This review was published originally on cinekklesia on January 20, 2008.

I freely admit that I am a shallow man. I used to think that I was "deep," that I was somehow above the grubby, materialist horde. However, when the materialism of this world proved not only pleasurable but even edifying, then my original hopes for leading a profound life dissipated. You see, right at the moment that one decides to pursue a good, service, or experience that is beyond the simplest and least expensive—when one has the means to move beyond the inferior good—then he/she has entered (probably irrevocably) the materialist realm.

How did this come to be? I suppose that I could blame, in part, my spouse, who introduced me to various culinary delights that surpassed what had been a staple meal in my bachelor days: elbow macaroni noodles (store brand) with canned Parmesan cheese (store brand). However, we also happen to live in a culture that is so wealthy, knowledgeable, and connected that many of us don't have to settle for basic, "inferior" goods; the materialist life is, in fact, the de facto life.

In many respects, Ben Stiller's Zoolander (2001) mirrors our current age. While the movie, at one level, mocks our culture's fascination with appearance, healthy living, and self-actualization, it also subtly encourages those very elements.

Stiller plays Derek Zoolander, a male model who fits all of the stereotypes that term connotes: he is shallow, body-centric, and a complete intellectual lightweight. He thrives on media attention and is always concerned with finding the appropriate "after party" to attend. However, when he loses VH1's award for male model of the year to rising star Hansel (Owen Wilson)—after having won in prior years—he begins to look at his existence in a different light. Perhaps there is "more to life, other than being really, really, ridiculously good looking." He then spends much of the rest of the movie stumbling around for direction: he tries to reconnect with his coal-mining family, and he even comes up with an idea for a non-profit organization — the Derek Zoolander Center for Children Who Can't Read Good and Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too.

Besides Zoolander's existential quest, we have other subplots threading their way through the movie. Will Ferrel plays Mugatu, the narcissistic designer who has been commissioned by his fashion-executive overlords to assassinate the leader of Malaysia — whose child-labor-busting crusade threatens their profits. (Mugatu's weapon of choice is, of course, Zoolander, who is brainwashed to serve as a sleeper agent.) Christine Taylor is Matilda Jeffries, the Time reporter trying to uncover the fashion industry's dark side, while David Duchovny performs an X-Files-inspired cameo as J.P. Prewitt, a model turned conspiracy theorist, who has collected evidence on how male models are the real agents of change in world history.

Ultimately, though, the focus of the movie is Zoolander and his shallow, stupid ways. Yet, we should ask ourselves: do we find him funny because he is so different from us, or because we recognize in him our 21st-century consumer culture and the ways in which it enmeshes us? For example, when Zoolander's male-model roommates offer to take him out for an Orange Mocha Frappuccino® in order to take his mind off his troubles, we laugh at their suggestion's innate frivolity — as though a chilled beverage was all that he needed. Besides, there is something shallow about the beverage itself: it's one thing to go out for a cappuccino or mocha (which have a sufficiently long culinary history), but to throw in orange flavor, mix it with ice, and call it a "frap" is far too cute, faddish, and ephemeral. However, if we honestly examined our own beverage consumption, then we probably would find our fair share of specialty coffees or other non-nutritional products.

Another example: when Zoolander visits his coal-mining family, they see one of his television ads, a spot for Aveda in which he dons a mermaid—um...merMAN—outfit, swims around, and utters these provocative words: "Moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty." Of course, it's a spoof of the utterly pretentious marketing often found in the "beauty" industry, and we laugh at how the models treat their ridiculous poses (a merman outfit?) as high forms of human expression. However, I'm the first to admit that I use moisturizer on my hands during these cold and dry winter months. Does that make me less manly? Or, am I simply following a contemporary trend that eschews the slovenly male who barely understands basic hygiene, let alone skin care?

Thus, underneath the obvious satire, Zoolander displays what designers and other trend setters have long known: at some point, the ephemeral becomes the substantial. One can just look at the U.S. consumer landscape to see how much has changed over the past couple of decades. For example, higher quality coffee has moved from independent, boutique establishments to chain cafes and on to general supermarkets. Organic food has moved from farmers' markets to the trend-setting Whole Foods and on to Wal-Mart(!). While quality coffee and organic foods were once regarded as fads of both the culinary avant-garde and self-righteous do-gooders—and not something for real, working people of substance—they now have become assimilated into the wider consciousness.

So what are we to make of this? At one level, this is simply inevitable: in a market economy, goods often move from elite to mass status (think of something as "basic" as indoor plumbing). Plus, as I mentioned before, once one decides to pursue a good or service beyond the bare minimum, then he/she has entered the ranks of the materialist, however slightly. Yet, before we bemoan our excess and exchange our Frappuccinos® for hair shirts, perhaps we should remember the Apostle Paul's caution against self-denial based on a worldly asceticism (Col. 2:20-3). The sin does not lie in the Frappuccino®, per se, but in our attitude towards it.

Thus, while Zoolander (in its own way) documents current trends in American consumer culture and the options that make up our daily material landscape, it also (gently) criticizes the attitudes of the "cutting edge" tastemakers. Their shallowness, frivolity, and narcissism are quite evident throughout the film and are worthy of mockery. In short, go ahead and use the moisturizer that the male model peddles; just don't be like that model.