More than likely, you’re aware that Joker is in theaters. Maybe the film’s marketing reached you. Or more likely, you read about it in the news. My local theater had to close their release screenings¹ of it, a story that was featured in national news. Other headlines describe nervous audiences,² nervous theater owners,³ even warnings from the military.⁴ While some remain blissfully indifferent to the agita that has surrounded the release of this film, many are troubled by the culture, the portents and the moral weather patterns that come with Joker. As Christians, those portents and patterns in our culture are worth paying attention to.

Inspiring Violence

People fear that the film will encourage violence by glorifying violence. They fear the titular character will be inspirational to potential mass-shooters. In an age where mass shootings happen with increasing frequency, there are fears that a movie like this will empower such people to carry out their dark visions, committing twisted acts of “justice” against the evils of society or venting personal frustrations in an outburst of bullets. Concerns have been raised about the glorification of the character himself, whom the filmmakers are portraying in a much more sympathetic/relatable light than in previous interpretations. Joker is given a “real world” backstory, one that doesn’t involve toxic waste or superpowers. His creation is much more human, much more heartbreaking and, therefore, much more identifiable, especially to those more likely to commit acts of real-world violence.

Many found the very idea of such a film distasteful in light of the perceived connections⁵ to the Aurora Colorado mass shooting during a 2012 screening of The Dark Knight Rises. While that film didn’t actually feature the Joker character, negative links were drawn to his character from the series’ prior film, The Dark Knight, which had come out four years earlier.

Regardless of subjective connections to the Aurora shooting, the new Joker film from director Todd Philips has received its share of bad press, receiving the stigmas of “insensitivity” and “irresponsibility” from the media and the public alike. And this is my biggest issue with the tempest surrounding the movie.

Allow me to illustrate: The film is about a person confronted with increasingly difficult circumstances. As he attempts to cope, he also attempts to restrain himself; he has the tools to deal with bad situations, but he doesn’t want to go there. He must resist the temptation to give in to his “true self.” However, when bad people push him too far, he takes action. And that action reveals the justification he needs to abandon his inhibitions: a just cause. Even though people die, his actions are justified by the viewer because:

• He didn’t ask for any of this (innocence).

• The bad guys deserve what they have coming (guilt).

What ensues is a crusade of righteous indignation, as the “hero” rights the many wrongs that they (and especially the people they care about) have suffered. In the end, we applaud their vengeance because the hero did what we could never do: bring justice to an unjust situation and deliver some much-deserved retribution.

Now ask yourself this: What film or Netflix series did I just describe? Was that Tombstone or John Wick? The Equalizer or The Punisher? Perhaps a Tarantino? Or maybe the Taken series? Better yet, how many films can you think of that follow this formula?

Not a New Movie

This leads me to my first observation. This film isn’t new. What I mean is, it’s not an altogether new idea. It doesn’t cover new subject matter; it’s not a new plot; its essence isn’t new. Hollywood has been cranking out films very similar to this one for years. The context changes, the characters and their circumstances change, but the major plot arc is routine: Injustice occurs ↠ the protagonist is triggered to action ↠ moral lines are crossed ↠ retribution to evildoers ↠ the protagonist rests from his work. And far more than simply being prevalent, these sorts of movies are incredibly popular at the box office and among critics. So it shouldn’t be any surprise that direct similarities have been drawn between Joker and older films that seemed less worrisome, at the time, to the general public. Among those are works from renown director Martin Scorsese. What’s interesting to me is that his films have featured similarly disturbed characters, doing similarly disturbing things, but have been lauded by audiences, critics and the press for decades. Yet here we are, with a very similar film inciting fear and restlessness among modern audiences.

Another aspect that isn’t new about this movie is one of its key thematic ideas. It’s the concept of being yourself, being true to yourself, letting go of people’s expectations of you and becoming who you really are. But this idea is so commonplace. In a sense, the admonition is almost “Disney-esque:” “Believe in yourself; follow the desires of your heart, and all of your dreams will come true.” Scripture condemns this concept with a slap of reality: The human heart is desperately wicked and unknowable, and its depravity needs to be resisted. The syrupy advice from fairytales takes on a more insidious tone when you apply it to people whose heart’s desire is selfishness, who pay no heed to the harm they cause to others. The concept of surrendering to your desires is Edenic in origin: see and take. Don’t let anything hold you back from realizing your dreams, and you will find satisfaction. This has remained a prevalent and popular ethos in our culture from the very inception of humanity.

Not A New Character

Another observation about the climate surrounding the film: The Joker character isn’t new in the most literal sense. He’s been around for nearly 80 years. And for all of those years, he has embodied murderous chaos with a flair for theatrics and humor. His depravity has never been sugar-coated. From the beginning, he’s been portrayed as a remorseless, laughing, gloating serial killer/criminal mastermind nemesis for Batman. His methods and motives have been illustrated unflinchingly, from his first appearance in the Batman No. 1 comic, through Jack Nicholson’s portrayal in 1989, to Heath Ledger’s (posthumously) award-winning depiction of the character.⁶

Somehow though, our culture seems uneasy about embracing this newest depiction, in the form of Joaquin Phoenix’s troubled Arthur Fleck. But what makes me uneasy about the whole character is how joyfully our culture has embraced all of his previous incarnations. It seems much scarier to me, and much more telling about our culturally-endemic desensitization, that people laugh and clap approvingly at a Joker who can “humorously” murder people with pencils or spray people with acid from his prank lapel flower or dance and joke over the bodies of people he’s just poisoned. Shouldn’t the taking of life feel sorrowful? Shouldn’t it feel wrong? Why aren’t we relieved when, in a sea of movies that casually devalue human life, this film conveys that killing is wrong and that the taking of lives is a violation, or at the very least, negatively impactful?

We Don’t Like the Context

In part, the distaste comes from the portrayal of the people who die. In the case of those murdered by the Joker in 1989’s Batman, the people seem so ridiculous and fake that it’s hard to feel any emotional pull when they meet their demise. They’re almost like cardboard cutouts who simply get pushed over: We don’t know them or care for them. Sure, there are the bad gangsters who die and, in a sense, get what they deserve. But for the people in the art museum, or in the streets of Gotham, their deaths are handled so humorously, numerously and callously, that we can hardly connect or identify with them. However, the on-screen deaths committed by this new Joker feel intimate, visceral and heavy.

Another aspect could be that, in the new film, the “bad guys” who die aren’t people we necessarily believe to be bad. There are even some we think aren’t bad at all; their only perceived guilt comes from simply being part of an unjust system, or “guilt by association.” Unlike the scores of Nazis that are brutally, sadistically dealt with in one popular film, we don’t necessarily identify the victims in this film as evil. But those who are less affluent, with less hope or less opportunity in life might. Hence, the public support of the killings from the general population within the film. They view Joker as a symbol: one man standing up against the system of oppression. The people who are killed in Joker are all either liars, cruel antagonizes or people benefiting from perceived corruption. In some way, and from a particular perspective, they’re all part of a system of hurt and abuse.

The problem though is that we don’t like how subjective their guilt is. Nevertheless, isn’t that the point-counterpoint between secular humanism and Christianity? The secular humanist would argue that right and wrong are subjective to the individual, while Christianity would hold to the objectivity of God’s Word.

To that point, there is a pivotal scene in the film when Arthur Fleck asks the question: “What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? Exactly what you deserve!” From his unhinged, subjective perspective, he’s doing what is right, giving out what he thinks is deserved. In a sense, the unease that comes from seeing his insanity and the perceived rightness of his crimes should find relief in the concept of a just God whom humanity is accountable to. Instead, the film depicts a subjectivity to the concepts of guilt and sin. Granted that it’s told from the perspective of an unhealthy mind, but it’s nonetheless the subjectivity of this framework that should make us very uneasy.

Sadness and Compassion

This aspect is new to the Joker story, at least to the film versions. This is a sad, sad film. The story begins within a financially depressed economy, where the circles of work and homelife are permeated with the stench of crime, shame and inescapable poverty. Building on this is the weighty responsibility of caring for an ailing, elderly mother. Add to that the aforementioned mental illness countered only by prescription drugs and weekly, state-afforded counseling sessions. Finally, add a neurological condition that makes you burst into uncontrollable laughter when stressful situations arise. But this particular facet is handled humorlessly. The emphasis is on the social awkwardness that such a condition would create. Imagine how quickly any argument would escalate if, after listening to a person’s issue, you burst out laughing. This is Arthur Fleck’s reality. The result is misunderstanding and isolation, compounded by the weight of all the other difficulties that surround him. This establishing tale of the Joker character doesn’t involve an accident with toxic waste creating a criminal mastermind, arch-villain and crime boss. This film is told from the perspective of desperation, depression and hopelessness. This is someone with no means, no friends, no hope, trudging through life under the weight of very identifiable sorrow.

Making the film more complex, the handling of sin is theologically interesting. As my Professor, Gerry Breshears, recently remarked in class, psychology usually only deals with the sins committed TO a person, and pastors usually only deal with sins committed BY a person. But this story deals with both. The protagonist is laden with difficulty from outside: systemic poverty and the burdens of trying to “put on a happy face” for a loved one, all within a world that views him as worthless. He’s also burdened with difficulty from within: the portrayal of mental un-health is intimate, personal, sorrowful and disturbing. Between these paradigms, we sadly observe the abuse, deception, lying and disappointment that he endures at the hands of others.

But we also see the evils that he commits as just that: evil. In a fashion reminiscent of Sophocles, Shakespeare and Vince Gilligan, each evil action he takes is just as destructive to himself as to those around him. His environment doesn’t vindicate his monstrous actions; nothing does. And his actions are never justified by the outcomes; they simply add momentum to his downward spiral. While you feel compassion for him, you’re never led to thinking that he’s “right,” or that his actions are acceptable, let alone funny.

Controversially Thought Provoking

And this raises another interesting aspect about the film: It doesn’t cram a message down your throat. Maybe we wish it would have. Maybe the press would be less nervous in their reporting if this were a morality tale, teaching that evil actions come from an evil environment. Or that embracing evil leads to an evil end. Instead, the film leaves the viewer with the abstract, existential question of evil itself. What is it? Where does it come from? How do you deal with it without becoming it? How do you prevent it? These questions form great conversational springboards for the Christian. Everyone recognizes evil in the world. Engaging in conversations about ultimate evil and its ultimate answer in the form of The Ultimate Love of God is like a slow pitch for anyone looking to share the truth and comfort of the Gospel.

What’s really interesting is that the film doesn’t “say” much at all as far as conclusion or application. It’s more revelatory than didactic. It’s left to the viewer to understand and interpret the tale. And perhaps therein lies the problem. Maybe it’s the ambiguity of evil that has caused so much tension, anxiety and fear. The secular humanist has no explanation of evil, let alone advice on what to do with it. The Bible does, but that’s the one place that “rational secularists” aren’t allowed to go for answers. However, when a film or event reveals gaps in the collective reasoning of our secular world, we as Christians need to be ready to address the unease, to use God’s Word to explain it and to cast light on the darkness.

_Notes:

_{¹ Cameron, Dell. “U.S. Military Issues Warning to Troops About Incel Violence at Joker Screenings.” September 24, 2019. (accessed October 06, 2019).}

_{² Daniel, Anslee. Bristol, “TN Drive-In Bans Costumes for Showing of ‘Joker.'” October 5, 2019. (accessed October 6, 2019).}

_{³ Desta, Yohana. “The ‘Joker’ Didn’t Inspire the Aurora Shooter, but the Rumor Won’t Go Away.” October 02, 2019. (accessed October 08, 2019).}

_{⁴ Fry, Hannah. “Credible Threat Targeting ‘Joker’ Screening Forces Huntington Beach Theater to Close.” October 4, 2019. (accessed October 4, 2019).}

_{⁵ Reeves, Jay. “Security, NY Incident Leave Some Unsettled After ‘Joker’.” October 5, 2019. (accessed October 6, 2019).}

_{⁶ Ledger’s portrayal garnered him 32 award nominations, leading to a staggering 28 wins, including an Academy Award for “Best Supporting Actor,” a Golden Globe for “Best Actor in a Supporting Role,” and a SAG award for “Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture.”}

_{CalvaryChapel.com does not necessarily endorse or agree with every message or perspective in the diverse film reviews posted. By providing these film reviews, we hope to help you stay informed of important events and conversations taking place in the world that are relevant to the Christian faith.}

_{Joker is rated R for strong bloody violence, disturbing behavior, language and brief sexual images.}

Ad Astra is a great film. It is not a teenager-targeted blockbuster space film that relies more on explosions, locker room humor, and sex appeal to hold the audience’s attention. As relieving as mental “junk food” can be after a stressful day at school or work, this movie is not that. Ad Astra is at the opposite end of the spectrum, and that’s a good thing. This is a story about hurt people dealing with hurt. The film trailers do well by setting a serious, thoughtful tone for the film. The space that the film traverses is much closer to home than most would anticipate from a sci-fi movie.

A Quick Concession Before I Continue

Before I go further, I want to make something clear: I like space movies. I have for a long time (I was a little boy at one time). I loved the fighting, the aliens, the laser guns, the heroes. As a role model, I looked up to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s special forces commando-type characters. I even identified with them. They were awesome in battle; I was awesome in (imaginary) battle. They never made bad choices, unlike the litany of tragically expendable cast-mates who were only memorable because of their increasingly creative demises. But I didn’t identify with those guys because, just like the hero, I could sense an enemy trap from miles off. I always knew just what to do. I never lost to the droves of aliens stalking my backyard pool or neighborhood park. Sure, Arnie’s enemies seemed more palpable, but they were no less imaginary than the hordes of aliens and monsters my brother and I would defeat.

However, as I’ve grown up, I’ve found myself being less and less able to relate to the heroes in my favorite sci-fi movies. As it turns out, I haven’t spent decades as a Special Forces operator. I won’t be facing swarms of aliens armed with naught but a pair of machine guns, muddied combat boots and fatigues, a strained muscle shirt, and a smoldering cigar. My monsters are so much more terrifying.

As a husband and father, I’m much less concerned with the threat of monsters that might crash land in my backyard. I fear my ability to fail my family. I fear disappointing my kids. I fear hurting the people I love most. I fear the weaknesses hiding comfortably just behind my eyes. I fear that I might be exposed as a fraud to those people who count on me most. I’d like to think that I don’t live under the constant weight of fear, and I don’t think I’m as affected by it as many people are. But there’s a reality to the idea that my fears, at some level, do encourage me to be less than transparent with my colleagues, my friends and my family.

Gravity In The Performance

And this is one of the major themes in this film. This is not simple, mental chewing gum; this is a thick cut of provocative, existential thought, and it’s handled with an approachable realism that surprised me. Part of that is due to the subtle strengths that this film brings to the table. Brad Pitt’s performance as astronaut “Maj. Roy McBride” showcases some of the reasons he’s one of Hollywood’s most sought-after leading men. Externally, with an enviable smile, physique and cool factor, he’s the type of man most men would love to be compared to. His likeableness in the Ocean’s 11 series, among many others, seems to exude a genuinely effortless charm. Pitt has a gift for portraying personable, friendly, relatable characters. But he’s also able to bring a vulnerability and introspectiveness to his roles that are so nuanced, you might forget he’s only acting the part. The gravity he brings to both his character, and Ad Astra as a whole, roots this Sci-Fi into very relatable, human-level territory.

His “Maj. Roy McBride” is the type of constant, clear-headed and heroic man a father would want to be. He has answers, a plan, focus and the decisiveness to make the best choices when things seem out of control. However, the film’s audience is omnisciently privy to his inner dialogue, and it’s this beating heart of insecurity that makes you realize how similar you are to him. On the outside, his colleagues and superiors are struck by his calm; even though he’s participated in active combat. He also recently survived a parachute escape from an exploding space tower, while his heart rate never exceeded 85bpm! He has a near-supernatural steadiness that makes him precisely the type of person NASA would want on a space mission. However, even though he can keep his heart rate down, and though he can give the correct answers needed to pass his constant barrage of psychological evaluations, he knows the truth. He has accomplished everything to which he aspired: become an astronaut, win the admiration of his peers and the approval of Military brass, and ultimately live up to his father’s legendary status. However, even with all of that, he’s separated from the woman he loves, his wife. He’s haunted by his failures, and the failures and hurts caused by those he loves. He struggles to hide his insecurity, ducking behind his duties and his stainless-steel exterior.

The Truth About Us

Unfortunately, this is very familiar territory for many of us, Christians and Pastors especially included. Many of us seek to emulate the men and women that we admire, perceiving similar calm, happy, decisive and compelling personalities. But we can only observe a tiny portion of their personhood. Similar to God’s admonition in 1 Samuel 16:4, there’s a lot more going on internally than humans can observe externally. Beneath the surface of any hero, be they pastors, leaders or social media influencers, there are layers of fear and doubt, logbooks of sins and failures and rosters of people that have been hurt, some with whom we’ve been reconciled, others not so much. And no matter how much we try to emulate the strengths of those we observe, we’re only able to see and therefore emulate a fraction of their personhood. And no matter how courageous, happy or successful we try to appear, we know the truth about ourselves. We’re haunted by the faces of our past failures or our fears of future ones. Major McBride is intimately aware of his two-faced nature, and it weighs on him. To keep it from interfering with what he needs to do, he puts an emotional tourniquet around his heart. He chokes it off from feeling anything. He disassociates from those that he holds dearest. While this makes him into the man he always wanted to be, able to do the things he’s always wanted to do, it also cuts him off from everyone that makes it all worth doing.

A Relatable Sci-Fi

And this is the greatest strength of the film. Even though you’re immersed in a science fiction world where the expanse of our galaxy seems open for exploration, it’s told through the eyes of very relatable, very vulnerable and very human characters. Where many “space films” lose me with their overly avant-garde existential musings, this film focuses on the emotional level of what things truly matter in the human experience: freedom, identity, purpose, community and love.

Ad Astra is a triumph for writer/director James Gray. In his 2016 film, The Lost City of Z, he paints a very relatable bleakness in the form of obsessive ambition.

This film feels a bit like a spiritual companion piece: the reality of living within the shadow of someone else’s obsessive ambition and the wake of destruction it has left.

Will we repeat the sins of our fathers when we chase after the mirage of success? What will be the cost of our achievements to those we love? What are our achievements costing them right now?

It’s Still Fun Though

Even though it’s heavy, the plot of the film never drags along under its own emotional weight. Scenes steadily move forward with solid action scenes, rising tension, impressive visual effects and some incredible cinematography from Hoyte van Hoyteme (Dunkirk, Spectre, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), opting for shooting on 35mm film rather than digital stock. Aesthetically, the film has a beautifully filmic look and feel. Max Richter’s score moves dynamically between subtle and powerful, conjuring equal parts vintage and futuristic. Ad Astra has all the joys and grandeur of a modern cinematic classic. This is one you’ll want to see at the cinema to truly enjoy the “largeness” of the score and the vastness of the setting.

In an age of digital film, digital effects, digital characters and digital delivery at home, this film is a relief. It’s well written, well-acted and well produced. More than that, it leaves you with much to think through, and that’s always something I admire in a good film. I don’t always want a film that only entertains; I want to be taken on an immersive journey; I want to be provoked. And the plot here is definitely provocative. This film reads our culture so well. In an age when people present such fictionally successful personas on social media, it’s refreshing to see someone like James Gray deal with what’s vulnerable and flawed. The script is written with such a subtle touch, it seems to reflect genuine emotion from sorrows of his own past.

The Heart of the Matter

Ad Astra (“to the stars” in Latin) is a voyage through space, but it’s also a thoughtful meditation on the human heart. It takes you across lunar landscapes just as gracefully and believably as it crosses topics like melancholy and love. But it’s not just a story exploring or explaining depression, isolation and listlessness. Ad Astra has a strong redemption message. And redemption is precisely what people need. As humans, we’re all broken and burdened; we’ve all been hurt to some degree. But we have a choice: We can remove ourselves from the possibility of being hurt again, or we can make our hearts accessible to love. As much as we want to believe that it’s possible to do both well, in truth, we can’t. We’re either vulnerable or unreachable. As a “space movie,” I was surprised to see such a close similarity to, and an almost parabolic expansion of a thought from C.S. Lewis:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Clocking in at just over two hours, it’s well worth the time to watch it. It will leave you thinking about your life, your choices and your identity in Christ.

_{Ad Astra is rated PG-13 for some violence, bloody images and brief strong language.}

_{CalvaryChapel.com does not necessarily endorse or agree with every message or perspective in the diverse film reviews posted. By providing these film reviews, we hope to help you stay informed of important events and conversations taking place in the world that are relevant to the Christian faith.}

Below is a review on the newly released film, A Wrinkle in Time. There are spoilers included in the analysis of this film.

A Wrinkle in Time has been controversial since before it was ever published. Author Madeleine L’Engle’s manuscript was rejected by 26 publishing houses before Farrar, Straus, and Giroux decided to give it the green light. Since its initial publication in 1962, A Wrinkle in Time has enjoyed prolonged popularity as well as literary praise, earning such prestigious awards as the Newbery Medal, Sequoyah Book Award, Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, and was runner up for the Hans Christian Anderson Award. Yet because of Madeleine L’Engle’s use of spiritual themes, and at times borrowing quotes from the Bible, the book has remained a source of contention on both sides of the aisle. Secularists have taken issue with her use of Biblical inspiration and want it pulled from school libraries. And evangelicals contend that the book is too liberal towards salvation, embracing too much universalism, or too much secular humanism, to give it a home in their bookstores.

Before we dive into the film, it’s worth noting a few things about the source text, and drawing a clear distinction between the book and the movie. While the film never ventures deeper than a cursory humanistic theme, the book’s author had a very different worldview. As a liberal Episcopalian, Madeleine L’Engle espoused something between universalism (in the end, everyone gets saved) and annihilationism (Hell isn’t eternal, in the end, the lost will cease to exist), believing that no one would be sent to eternal judgement. She reportedly said “I cannot believe that God wants punishment to go on interminably any more than does a loving parent. The entire purpose of loving punishment is to teach, and it lasts only as long as is needed for the lesson. And the lesson is always love.”¹ She believed Christianity could comfortably coexist with all other world religions, because all would eventually be saved, whether they believed in Christ at time of death or not.

Paradoxically, she also wrote “To be truly Christian means to see Christ everywhere, to know him as all in all,” in her book Walking on Water. “I don’t mean to water down my Christianity into a vague kind of universalism, with Buddha and Mohammed all being more or less equal to Jesus-not at all! But neither do I want to tell God (or my friends) where he can and cannot be seen!”

However, her perspective of the priority of Christ among other religious leaders is clear from the novel of A Wrinkle In Time. At one point, when explaining forces that have fought the great universal evil in the universe, The Dark Thing, Mrs. Whatist says, “Some of our best fighters have come right from your own planet…You can be proud that it’s done so well.” She lists Jesus, Gandhi, Einstein, and the Buddha as some of Earth’s “best fighters.”

What is obvious is that Madeleine L’Engle had no problem fashioning a Christianity to her own liking. She wasn’t comfortable allowing scripture to remain the final authority on such matters as eternal judgement and salvation, thus leaving a very cloudy understanding of morality and ultimate truth.

While all mentions of Jesus and the Bible have been thoroughly expunged from the screenplay, the film still can’t shake the murkiness of the source material.

And, externally, A Wrinkle in Time has all the hallmarks of a film classic. The teenage protagonists Meg Murray (Storm Reid) and Calvin (Levi Miller) and her adopted child-genius younger brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe), step into a fantastic world where science and magic meet, as they embark on a journey across the cosmos to find their missing father, astrophysicist Dr. Murray (Chris Pine). Along the way, they are guided by three powerful cosmic beings: the aloof Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon), pop culture quoting Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling), and the all-wise Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey). With the outlandish and other-worldly visuals, a trio of energetic teenage heroes, and the powerful (and magical) help of three eccentric fairy godmother types, the film has all the promise and excitement of a new original adventure franchise in the making. And it might have achieved just that, were it not for the flimsy, hastily strung-together narrative that is constantly barraged by an unrelentingly tone-deaf mantra of secular humanism.

At this point I want to completely overlook the film production itself. With so many poor critical reviews out there already, as well as it’s “Certified Rotten” 41% score on Rotten Tomatoes (with an abysmal 33% audience score), I really didn’t want to publish another scathing review. What I would like to do is take a closer look at the film’s message. While most films embrace a worldly perspective by default, this film is drenched in self-importance, making a concerted effort to present a particular worldview. And while that worldview is presented as the answer to life’s problems, it offers no tangible solutions.

The movie serves a very convincing dose of painful reality: a mother, daughter and adopted son have lost their husband and father.

And if that pain weren’t bad enough, they have zero closure. He vanishes one day, out of nowhere, while conducting astrophysics experiments. No explanation, no suggestions that he survived, nothing. Compounding this pain is the reality that Meg has the relentless bullying and torment of school pretty-girl/bully Veronica Kiley to look forward to every day. Calvin on the other hand has to deal with a father who expects too much of him and verbally abuses him. Even the school pretty girl Veronica battles insecurity, body-image issues, and low self-esteem. These are characters and situations that so many kids will find themselves identifying with in real life. The scenarios are sadly all-too real. These issues are hurts that kids everywhere are forced to deal with all the time.

But what sort of hope or advice does this movie offer for those whose hurts aren’t just part of a movie plot? To place your faith in yourself. You hold the keys to your own salvation, if you’ll just believe in yourself, and tune yourself to the right frequency (love). And how, one might ask, does one apply this advice to their horrible situations at home? In essence, rely on no one but yourself, because everyone else will let you down, and only you can save you. Far from useful, this is a very thin, very hollow placebo that sends you back to your problems with sunshine and warm fuzzies, but those quickly cool with the understanding that, in reality, you’ve received nothing that can actually help you.

Secular humanism is the belief that humans are capable of their own morality and code of ethics without the need for any god or religion.

The belief is that people are neither inherently evil (contrary to Jeremiah 17:9; Matthew 15:19) nor inherently good. And further, mankind has the ability to be their own moral standard, with no need for external governance or salvation. So, in the absence of an external, theistic moral compass, those who embrace the ultimate ideal of love are worthy of governing themselves. And through self-reliance, tapping into the universal frequency of love, we can solve all of life’s problems.

The trouble is, being kind to bullies that torment you doesn’t always bring catharsis. Digging in and believing in yourself doesn’t hold much weight when you’ve lost your loved one, or when your emotionally abusive parent is screaming at you.

In many ways, this movie contrasts the nihilistic approach from the last film I reviewed, Annihilation. The message here is that you do have purpose in this world. But that purpose is to simply believe in yourself and fulfill your potential, fixing your own problems and healing your own hurts through the power of love. In truth, both of these movies leave you with the cold reality of the world that all humans experience. We all have pain and failure in our lives, but we don’t have the strength, patience, or willpower to undo all the hurts that we continue to experience.

And it’s this disparity, between what people have and what people need, that really stands out.

The need for people to receive the power to change. The need to receive the power to overcome. The need to receive the power to forgive. This movie acts as though it has imparted all the wisdom (over the course of its two-hour run time) that we need to truly soar above our personal demons, whether internal or external. But really, all that’s been given is a load of empty promises. When you truly place your faith solely in yourself, you end up alone, isolated from the people that can share life’s burdens with you. On the one hand, Meg needs to reject the counsel of her cosmic helpers if she hopes to save her dad, she must reject her dad’s counsel to save her loved ones, and she must step out in faith in herself alone when no one else can help her. Yet moments later, she needs the help of another to obtain victory. Even the idea of self-salvation presented here seems to be nebulous and self-contradicting.

But all of this is quickly glossed over in typical Hollywood fashion, with flashy characters, a whirlwind of cinematic locales, immersive visual effects, but ultimately hollow platitudes. For a movie that flaunts itself as an enlightened perspective on the cultural problems faced by today’s youth, the substance of the life advice offered here is unsurprisingly bankrupt. And it’s here where the book and the film coalesce into similar works marred with the same shortcomings. While trading in the uniqueness and exclusivity of Christ, Madeleine L’Engle also gave up the Way He provides to ultimate fulfilment, the Truth that gives clarity and meaning to life’s difficulties, and the Life of joy and peace that all people are searching for. But all you’re really left with here is a mixed-up morality tale with the disappointing aftertaste of hollow, unhelpful worldly wisdom.

¹ Morgan, Christopher W; Peterson, Robert A. Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment. p. 171.

A Wrinkle in Time is rated PG for thematic elements and some peril

Image credited to Disney

CalvaryChapel.com does not necessarily endorse or agree with every message or perspective in the diverse films reviews posted. By providing these film reviews, we hope to help you stay informed of important events and conversations taking place in the world that are relevant to the Christian faith.

The idea of existential nihilism couldn’t be more opposed to my Biblical, Christian worldview. To think that everything we see and experience ultimately lacks purpose or significance is incredibly depressing and defeating. Why would we do anything? Why should we care? What’s the point? It creates a vacuum of hope within a world that seems to be brimming with purpose. And it’s also not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that I have meaning and that Creation as a whole has thoughtful purpose. And when I view the world through this lens, I can clearly see the unmistakable evidence of a personal, omniscient and benevolent Creator. I don’t see a planet filled with souls born for no reason and governed by no hope other than arbitrary, dispassionate chance, where the only balance and order present exists simply because it was produced randomly. I see Creation, design and life, all with intrinsic value, significance and purpose.

But if I were pressed to imagine a world without a Creator, defaulting nihilism to reality, I would imagine a world similar to what is found in the ambitious new film by Alex Garland, Annihilation.

The film is loosely adapted from the popular fictional series of the self-same name penned by Jeff VanderMeer. The story follows soldier/Johns Hopkins biologist Lena (Natalie Portman) as she and a team of female scientists seek to unlock the secrets of “The Shimmer,” a beautiful and mysterious phenomenon (think giant rainbow wall of dangerous energy) that is slowly engulfing an uninhabited section of coastal Florida. Though numerous teams have been sent into it to determine it’s nature, communication is always quickly lost, and none have returned to tell what awaits inside. It’s up to this small team of scientists to discover the phenomenon’s origin, and to stop it’s imminent spread across the state, the country and the world.

As the team plunges into the unknown, they are met with a world that becomes increasingly strange and disorienting the deeper they venture. Time passes differently; their compasses don’t work, and their thoughts and memories feel scattered. And the normal swamp types of plants and animals have been changed, twisted into new things that are at times beautiful and at others, the stuff of nightmares. Director Alex Garland crafts a lush, eerily familiar world that is both gorgeous and terrifying. Using a broad palette of lushly saturated colors, he has painted a unique vision of a dystopian future, where overgrown ruins and vibrant jungle are all that remain of abandoned neighborhoods and towns.

While the action in this film is used fairly effectively to keep the storyline tense, it’s mainly the standard sci-fi fare (jump scenes, monsters and ominous music). The main attraction here isn’t the plethora of horrible creatures that seem to lurk behind every corner, nor other-worldy landscape. What takes center stage in this tale is the vast unexplored psychological landscape of our protagonist.

While each woman on the expedition is haunted, flawed and broken, none are more so than Lena. Still reeling from the sudden and mysterious reappearance of her long-missing husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac) and his subsequently dire medical conditions, she is still dealing with the traumatic effects of her own extramarital affair with a colleague (while no explicit nudity is present, the relationship is shown on a few occasions) during her husband’s long absences due to military deployment. And now she must battle her own demons, the elements and the clock to try and find the answers that will save her husband and the world.

And it’s against the visceral backdrop of her own personal failures that we start to understand the lens through which she, her team and the filmmakers view life: the actions of an impersonal, dispassionate universe are random. Cosmic events happen without purpose or malice. And the inevitable destruction they bring into our lives is something humanity must deal with on an individual and societal level. As the world is being destroyed (or remade) by the mysterious “Shimmer,” do we confront it; do we rage against it, or do we make peace with the change and embrace it as inevitable and not evil? At a cosmic level, entropic destruction is as inevitable as gravity. How should humanity react to it? But even more existentially, as the team’s psychologist Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh) observes, self-destruction seems to be pre-programmed into us on a cellular level. It’s human nature to veer towards destruction. We constantly seek to bring imbalance to healthy situations. We sabotage our own healthy marriages. We undermine our perfect, comfortable jobs. We seem inexplicably drawn to breaking and being broken. And even if we do decide to confront it and rage against it, destruction will come eventually.

And this is actually a much more nuanced difference to the gospel message than it might seem. The Bible tells us that entropy will run its course on society. As sinfulness continues to rise, the wrath of God will eventually reach it’s boiling point and be poured out onto the world. And on an individual level, if left to our own natural, sinful tendencies, hurt and destruction are the inevitable outcomes. As this film postulates, destruction is simply change in varying degrees. And if that is how you define change, then change is inevitable; all we can do is decide how we will react to it. And this would be absolutely true BUT FOR CHRIST.

Jesus came to save humanity from it’s inevitable self-destruction. And He comes to the individual to present Himself as the answer to our seemingly inevitable tendency to break the good things around us. He is both willing and able to redeem the brokenness that we cause and experience, to bring about a hope-filled end. And His solution is much more existential than symptomatic: I lovingly and sovereignly made you, and I crafted you for a purpose. To fulfill a cosmic plan that was pre-ordained since before the beginning.

For the Christian, Annihilation paints a fairly bleak view of life. But I think it’s necessary for believers to be confronted with such despairing perspectives. We should deeply consider the views of the non-Christians around us. And not for the purpose of crafting our best apologetic responses so as to win arguments and gain respect. We should understand the truly hope-less views of the people in the world around us. And we shouldn’t do it as a once-and-for-all type exercise. New arguments and worldviews combatting God’s true nature are constantly popping up. As the salt and light, we should constantly be thinking through the implications of differing worldviews so as to better present their adherents with a thoughtful, truthful and compassionate response to their beliefs.

While the language, violence and implied sexual content in this film may be unpalatable to many believers, confrontation with a nihilistic worldview should open up a healthy dialog among believers, as well as informing our understanding of a worldview that logically goes hand in hand with atheism, a belief that is more and more becoming our culture’s default worldview.

And while the story is engaging, intense and well crafted, and the visuals seamlessly blur the lines between tangible and surreal, the philosophical implications of the film are this: The result of the natural world running its course is unavoidable and indifferent destruction. What a perfect place to begin a conversation about the purpose, the plan and the salvation that God has in mind for every individual person that has ever been and ever will be.

Annihilation is Rated R for violence, bloody images, language and some sexuality.

Image credited to Paramount Pictures

CalvaryChapel.com does not necessarily endorse or agree with every message or perspective in the diverse film reviews posted. By providing these film reviews, we hope to help you stay informed of important events and conversations taking place in the world that are relevant to the Christian faith.