Having caught one of the bugs that has been going around this week, I found myself with time to watch some movies. This has been one of those illnesses that didn’t lend itself to reading, writing, or sitting upright for that matter, but now that I’m on the downhill side, I have resumed a bit of normalcy, even if I’m not in the office as a walking petri dish. 

One of the movies I was able to watch was the recent, and critically acclaimed, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”. As an upfront disclaimer, it is an R-rated movie, primarily for language and some violence, but it was not an offensive movie, either. I simply offer the caveat so that if you decide to rent it, you aren’t surprised that I’ve recommended such a movie. I don’t want to say too much about it or offer spoilers, so let me share the summary the filmmaker, Fox Searchlight Pictures, used to advertise the film:

“THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI” is a darkly comic drama from Academy Award nominee Martin McDonagh (In Bruges). After months have passed without a culprit in her daughter's murder case, Mildred Hayes (Academy Award winner Frances McDormand) makes a bold move, painting three signs leading into her town with a controversial message directed at William Willoughby (Academy Award nominee Woody Harrelson), the town's revered chief of police. When his second-in-command Officer Dixon (Academy Award winner Sam Rockwell), an immature mother's boy with a penchant for violence, gets involved, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing's law enforcement is only exacerbated.”

I figured I would like the movie because I like so many of the actors in the film, and know them to be wonderfully talented. In that regard, I was not disappointed. I also found this to be a film that kept me off balance; it prevented me from patting myself on the back for thinking I could see down the road and predict what would happen, or what the filmmakers were trying to do. Some movies are a bit obvious in their messages, and others are a bit subtler. I would say there was some subtlety in this film that I wasn’t expecting, which allowed it to do its job. It was sort of a slow burner. And whether it has been the remnants of a viral fog or an intentional artistic effort (I suspect the latter only because of its critical acclaim), this one has continued to work on me.

Again, I don’t want to offer any spoilers, but what I can say is that this movie does a good job of letting the viewer into the heads of its characters. The old saying about, “walking a mile in another person’s shoes,” is apropos. In the cinematic sense, watching a scene of another character can have a similarly enlightening effect. It can create understanding and empathy, which, although we may not like it, can be very powerful. It is possible for our preconceived notions and condemnations to be proven wrong in time, upon reflection.

I’ve spoken before about the reality that Garrison Keilor (I think…) portrayed by explaining how each of us is like a stage show. What we see going on with other people is often the set-designed, scripted, make-up wearing, rehearsed part of that person – it’s what they work hard for us to see. We don’t get to see behind the curtain or in the wings; we don’t see the mad rushing around, the frantic and nervous actor, or the fear that disappears at a distance of at least two rows back. Which means we get the worst of it. We know our own back stage shortcomings and drama, and tend only to see the polished bits of others. That can be devastating.

It also means that we can label people, make assumptions about them, write them off, place them on pedestals, condemn them, and even worship them, all of which can be misguided as a result of the dynamic between what we think about ourselves and assume about others. It’s a never-ending struggle. The spiritual cure for this is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves; to recognize others for how similar they are to us, which is why they are as worthy of love, grace, forgiveness, and the like. That, of course, assumes we treat ourselves that way to begin with, and some would say assumes that God starts from there, too. That’s another rambing.   

At the end of the day, the prescription is to give people the benefit of the doubt, get to know them, try to understand them, who they are, where they’ve been, and why they do what they do. That won’t make bad behavior good, for example, but it will help us know how best to respond. In the story of “Three Billboards”, the main character manages to put her internal struggle out in the open, so to speak, as a way to both vent her frustration over her daughter’s murder, but also, (without adding a spoiler – because it’s a simple deductive insight) to release some of the pain of a grieving mother. I don’t necessarily recommend the billboard approach, but hopefully we are able to love one another enough to see, or at least intuit what is going on behind the scenes. That will probably change our ideas about others in dramatic and important ways, which wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.

Tom+

O God:
Give me strength to live another day;
Let me not turn coward before its difficulties or prove recreant to its duties;
Let me not lose faith in other people;
Keep me sweet and sound of heart, in spite of ingratitude, treachery, or meanness;
Preserve me from minding little stings or giving them;
Help me to keep my heart clean, and to live so honestly and fearlessly that no outward failure can dishearten me or take away the joy of conscious integrity;
Open wide the eyes of my soul that I may see good in all things;
Grant me this day some new vision of thy truth;
Inspire me with the spirit of joy and gladness;
and make me the cup of strength to suffering souls;
in the name of the strong Deliverer, our only Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

From Foward Movement