A World With Happy Endings?
Lori and I just got home from seeing the movie The Soloist (on opening night, no less! Thanks mom!). I don't want to spoil the movie for anybody who's going to watch it, so I won't give anything away here.
Let me just say, really great movie - based on a true story, a book by a LA Times reporter.
Here's what I will say about the whole thing, though.
Where do you draw the line between "reporting" and "exploiting". Let's face it, the reporter needs to write something that sells, right? What happens when what sells is someone else's story?
We seem to always want to read about other peoples' lives - especially when they're broken lives - tabloids are full of that stuff - well, about famous people. And that fascination is ancient - read about King David's life (or watch the show Kings.
But there's a fascination about the brokneness of "normal" people, too. And that's part of the appeal of the movie - a sort-of ordinary life, very broken.
There's also the hope for redemption - I think that's part of the appeal of the stories of brokenness. We may wallow in the deeps of a crushed life, but we want to see the sun shine in that darkness, we want to see healing and hope.
But we live in a world that often doesn't have happy endings, does it? But we still want happy endings (okay, maybe *I* want happy endings) and the world seems a little less threatening when that's what we hear.
Well, it's late - that's a quick reflection post The Soloist. Go see it, you'll like it.
Let me just say, really great movie - based on a true story, a book by a LA Times reporter.
Here's what I will say about the whole thing, though.
Where do you draw the line between "reporting" and "exploiting". Let's face it, the reporter needs to write something that sells, right? What happens when what sells is someone else's story?
We seem to always want to read about other peoples' lives - especially when they're broken lives - tabloids are full of that stuff - well, about famous people. And that fascination is ancient - read about King David's life (or watch the show Kings.
But there's a fascination about the brokneness of "normal" people, too. And that's part of the appeal of the movie - a sort-of ordinary life, very broken.
There's also the hope for redemption - I think that's part of the appeal of the stories of brokenness. We may wallow in the deeps of a crushed life, but we want to see the sun shine in that darkness, we want to see healing and hope.
But we live in a world that often doesn't have happy endings, does it? But we still want happy endings (okay, maybe *I* want happy endings) and the world seems a little less threatening when that's what we hear.
Well, it's late - that's a quick reflection post The Soloist. Go see it, you'll like it.
Comments