The Sheila Variations

Under-rated movies: #13

13. Eye of God

Directed by Tim Blake Nelson (he also wrote it - it started out as a play), the film was pretty much ignored when it came out - and is so ignored to this day that I could barely find any images of the film online. It was critically acclaimed - the reviews are universally fantastic - but it didn't find an audience. In America this is obviously a sin ... but I think some films are not meant for a broad audience, and as long as they can continue to get made, and be appreciated in certain circles, I'll be happy. It is in films like Eye of God that you can see a movie with very few compromises. Most big budget films make all kinds of compromises - with script, or casting, or general thematic elements - and sometimes the films are successes regardless, but other times they are complete debacles (uhm - Bonfire of the Vanities? Imagine how incredible that film could have been with a smaller budget, no stars in it, a script that actually went where Tom Wolfe went and didn't soft-pedal the racism in the book, and a director with the courage of his convictions. It could have been amazing. But once you cast Tom Hanks, you are saying something about what kind of a film it will be, for better or for worse. Once you let Morgan Freeman demand a gazillion dollars for 2 days of work, when he was seriously miscast anyway - you have compromised the project irrevocably. This is why the smaller indie films like Eye of God, the ones ignored by most people, are so often better made, despite the smaller budget.)

Nelson has gone on to greater success - he's an actor, too (look up his credits - some massive hits there) - and Eye of God was his directorial debut. Which is even more amazing when you watch the film which, in my mind, doesn't make a misstep.

It's one of the most unsettling movie experiences I have ever had. This film is not for the light-hearted, or for those who need morals at the end. It's one of the bleakest pictures of humanity I can think of - and the fact that film-makers feel the need to apologize for this - apologize for making serious films - is a sorry commentary on the state of things. Yes, there is a place for comedic films, romance films - but these genres are not the natural default position for films. Neither are serious films, by the way - there IS no default position, but especially now in this day of blockbusters, when opening day grosses are printed in the newspaper - people feel inclined to apologize for any seriousness that may be in a film. Or at least WARN people. "Look out - this isn't a comedy!"

I'm not warning you - because I don't think seriousness is a bad thing. I don't think bleakness is anything to apologize for. I don't want it as a regular diet but it's just as much a part of life as anything else. This film is bleak. It is heart-achingly bleak. And it does not congratulate itself for it. You know those films that are bleak and think it's really cool to be so bleak? Eye of God is bleak because you know why? Sometimes shit happens, and sometimes life DOESN'T work out for people. And that is bleak.

I can't say much about Eye of God because it is full of secrets. The story is not told in chronological order - we jump around - we think we're moving in a linear way, and then we realize that sometimes we go backwards, sometimes we skip forwards. It's not a gimmick. Or it doesn't feel like one.

And the title resonates long after the credits roll, because it is not explained in the film. Nobody spells it out. A character doesn't do an impassioned monologue about the eye of God, to let us know what we are supposed to feel, to telegraph: "Here is 'The Meaning' of the movie." After I first saw it, I sat - stunned - in my living room - I'm telling you, the film is horrifying - it takes on the qualities of a Greek tragedy, in that the whole thing starts to feel inevitable, even though you, in the audience, can see: "Oh wait - if she didn't do THAT, then THAT would not have happened ..." We feel how if so and so made one different choice, then the awful consequences would not have followed. Life feels incredibly precarious after you watch this film. I wondered if the title had to do with the audience: we, in the audience, are omniscent, in a way. We know the end. Since the story is jumbled up, we know some of the things that will happen before the characters do. So we feel their fragility, we feel their vulnerability - as these huge events approach, and they remain oblivious. And yet - what does that say about the film's opinion on God? God sees all, but he never intervenes. Therefore, what good is he? The film is brutal in this way. But again, none of this is spelled out. All I know is, I have rarely felt so hopeless and so enraged when watching a film. It is an intensely wrenching experience. And - unlike the Greeks - there is no catharsis. This film reveals the lie of "everything happens for a reason". This film is an indictment of that kind of easy tie-it-up-in-a-bow thinking. There is evil in this world, and it preys on the innocent. Tim Blake Nelson obviously does not think that Ainsley's suffering "happens for a reason".

In his review of this film, Ebert writes:

The villain in the film is not exactly Jack. Like an animal, he behaves according to his nature, and the way to deal with him is to stay away from him. The movie is more about Ainsley's luck than Jack's behavior. Somebody always marries these jerks, but you gotta hope it's not you.

Exactly. We have empathy for Ainsley. Not only that, though, we are screaming at her, mentally, to run. Run. As fast as you can. Run! He's a monster. Run!!! But she does not run. Because she is an innocent. And she does not see the world as a place where evil stalks. So when it shows up on her doorstep, with a friendly warm smile, she lets him in.

The acting in this film is superb.

Kevin Anderson (I guess his biggest film hit would be the next-door neighbor in Sleeping with the Enemy - but he's a hugely accomplished stage actor) plays Jack - the ex-convict. Martha Plimpton, in one of her most interesting roles (I thought she should have been nominated for an Oscar) plays Ainsley, the bored small-town girl who seems to just be ... waiting. She is waiting. For what we don't know, she doesn't know either ... But her life is small. And somehow, she thinks ... it should be bigger. She's a waitress in a diner. She goes and sits at a 7-11 type store out on the highway - just so she can watch the people come and go. Maybe so she can live vicariously. Even just by watching them pump gas ... she can imagine that maybe one day she will get to travel, too. You love Ainsley. She is not a melancholy character - although Plimpton manages to suggest the deep wells of sadness within her. No. She's the kind of person who puts on a happy face, who looks on the bright side of things, who has had horrible horrible things happen to her - and yet it has not destroyed her essential innocent core. Plimpton, who has always been wise beyond her years (member her Calvin Klein ads, when she was - oh - 10 years old?) is almost unrecognizable here. And completely believable. Without her performance, the film would not work. And by "work" I mean - put us through the wringer. She is not a complicated character. Or - she IS, but she doesn't complicate things in her own mind. She is not self-reflective, or intelligent about who she is. But her vague yearnings for ... something more ... are at the heart of this movie. Perhaps if she hadn't thought that something ELSE might be out there for her ... Jack would not have come into her life. And perhaps she would not have welcomed him in with such warmth and such trust.

Hal Holbrook plays the sheriff in the town - in a wonderful performance which capitalizes on the Holbrook-ness of Hal Holbrook. Holbrook can sometimes, in the wrong material, veer off into sentimental folksiness. This is so not the case here. He is our way into this story, first of all. He is our closest link to anything even resembling a linear narrative ... so we need him. He is kind and patient to the character played by Nick Stahl (in a heart-rending performance) - as he questions him about what "happened out there". He is kind and patient, yes, but we feel the growing anger within (and the questioning takes place over the course of the film - we keep cutting away to the story and then coming back to it - a constant reminder of where these c haracters are going) - We can feel Holbrook's honing in on the hidden evil in their midst. He begins to sense the inevitable too. He is a man of law and order. He is a small-town sheriff. He knows everyone in the town, and perhaps his job is not all that exciting on a day to day basis. It's pretty slow, on the whole - no burglaries, maybe a couple drunk-and-disorderly problems - but nothing like THIS. However, here he is, faced with a blood-covered young boy, who has lost the ability to speak - he has gone mute with horror over whatever it was he witnessed - and you can see the genius of all good cops everywhere. You can see his inherent goodness, and his inherent hatred of badness. So although he is kind and patient - you get the feeling that this is NOT a man to be messed with.

Kevin Anderson is absolutely marvelous in his role - and it's funny - I have watched Sleeping with the Enemy a gazillion times, mainly because it seems to be on television pretty much every day - and I never found him all that convincing in his part as the kindly rather baffled drama-teacher guy who lives next door. I know that is partly due to the filming because director Joseph Rubin wanted to keep us on edge, not let us trust him right away. But even so - even with Anderson's shaggy shock of hair, and nice soft smile, and kind eyes - there was something there - something that never really sat well with me. I guess I just didn't find him all that convincing. I saw him on Broadway in Death of a Salesman - he played Biff - and he was GREAT. Better than Dennehy. Well - everyone was better than Dennehy in that. But then - when I saw Eye of God - the little light-bulb went off in my head. He is so good in this film, and so convincing - that you, the audience member, get as discombobbled as Ainsley at times. He is a wolf in sheep's clothing - and you get that very early on, so I'm not giving anything away. But his true milieu is not the nice guy who gets the girl - despite the cute-boy looks. It's much more menacing. He is nothing less than 100% convincing in this part. I thought he should have gotten an Oscar nomination as well. He's that good.

I said earlier in this post that this is an example of a movie that has very little compromise in it. I was talking in terms of the overall movie - the cast is excellent, everyone knocks their role out of the park, the script doesn't hold back - it stays true to its story. The tone of the film is perfect. There are eerie moments of stillness which are nearly unbearable. The tension never lets up. We see a line of dark trees on the other side of a pond, and the camera rests on them - not moving - for what feels like forever. There are no sounds. No voices. And it's one of the most terrifying images in the film. Nelson was not forced by a studio to tack on a happy ending, or at least give a moral so the audience can have some hope. No. He filmed what he wanted to film. No compromises.

But in another meaning of the word - this is an uncompromising film in its theme, and in its insistence on the story it wants to tell. It is uncompromising in its views of loneliness, hope, love, redemption, mercy, God.

A wrenching film, it stayed with me for days after I saw it, and stays with me still.

Posted by sheila