This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Bases Loaded & Here Come da Judge
Plot Overview
Pretty Bertie Knox (Ellen Pompeo) got
knocked silly in a pickup baseball game at local Rogers Field
in Gloucester, Massachusetts. That started a relationship with
the errant batter Calford McGinnis. She became his regular helper
serving drinks at Cal's Place a downtown watering hole. When
he got called away in the draft, circa 1968, she became its night
manager. Her day job is, “I sling stamps down at the post
office.” Cal has now—1972—been missing for three
years, leaving her in limbo and “a source of entertainment”
in the small town.
One of Bertie's customers is writer Jojo
Floss (Susan Sarandon) whose husband Ben (Dustin Hoffman) works in
commercial real estate. He has designs on Cal's Place as the linchpin
in a shopping mall scheme. He's invited his future son-in-law Joe Nast
(Jake Gyllenhaal) to go into business with him, so Joe and his
fiancée, Ben and Jojo's daughter Diana, move back to town to prepare
for their June wedding and Joe for the new business. Diana tragically loses
her life before the wedding. In order to intercept the now moot
invitations, Joe goes down to the post office where he meets Bertie.
In
a town experiencing a “boy shortage,” one of Diana's friends
(“The vultures have landed”) connives to take Joe to a
bar where he ends up dancing with Bertie. They develop feelings for
each other, but Joe's loyalty is to Ben and Jojo who aren't done
processing their daughter's death, so he's inhibited from following
through with Bertie as he would like. As if that weren't bad enough,
in this time of a historical generation gap, Joe has some critical
secret that he won't share with them, not until he's under oath in the
trial of the accused killer. It's as described by author Ken Follett:
“The war taught me that nothing counts as much as loyalty.”“Bullshit. You still haven't learned that when humans are under stress, we're all willing to lie.”
“Even to people we love?”
“We lie more to our loved ones, because we care about them so damn much. Why do you think we tell the truth to priests and shrinks and total strangers we meet on trains? It's because we don't love them, so we don't care what they think.” (225)
Ideology
The movie opens with Ben on the phone to the rabbi to make sure there's no mention of God in the service … or of Yahweh. On the way to the funeral, they pass a church whose sign reads: Gloucester Village Church. No mention of God there either. It's a safe bet that had there been a wedding, God would not be mentioned in it. It's probably cultural and Massachusetts being the stronghold of the Puritans, this is likely their influence. According to cultural historian David Hackett Fischer the Puritans regarded marriage not as a sacred institution, but rather as providing a family context where its members could socially live out the grace of God. The Puritans had “a cultural idea of marriage that was unique to the Puritan colonies. … The Puritans of New England rejected all the Anglican ideas. They believed that marriage was not a religious but a civil contract” (77).
Let's compare that with what marriage has been from time immemorial. For a proper definition, I'll quote Dr. Ide: “The Contemporary Christian standard was defined not by the bible but generated by Roman law as defined by the jurist Modestinus who argued that marriage was ‘consortium omnis vitae, divini et humani iuris communicatio: a life-long partnership, and a sharing of civil and religious rights’” (83–5). Saint Augustine defined marriage as a domestic church, which is what Catholics still call matrimony in their catechism, and the Orthodox do too. Martin Luther who started Protestantism favored what he called a companionate marriage, which has caught on everywhere but doesn't obviate the other. If the church tends to religious rights, the state regulates civil rights in the domestic sphere. The feminists just complain about a married woman being a domestic.
Bertie was by no means married to Cal and
nobody said anything to her about engagement. She's not sporting any
“hardware,” i.e. rings.
She's just been “helping out” at Cal's place. The feminists
would call her a domestic.
The second victim—head wound—in the “family restaurant” shooting is the “wife” of a bloke who went off his meds and got a little trigger happy. The prosecutor called her his “common-law wife, concubine, whatever.” In court the humble guy turns into a “loving husband.” The state gives more substance to their marriage than does Jesus who didn't recognize common-law marriage. (John 4:17-18) “The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.” Their marriage is but a domestic partnership.
Ben and Jojo's marriage is that and also a domestic church whether the rabbi mentioned Yahweh in their ceremony or not, as they've lived out the proper vows and had the proper witnesses from among their friends.
It was expected that Puritans would marry. The unwed determined to remain single were even compelled to live with families to keep them out of trouble. It should be no surprise then to see Joe welcomed to live with his once expected in-laws, though he being not from around there thought it “weird.”
As for love everybody loved
everybody else except for the prosecutor, of course. The couples
in various kinds of “marriages” loved one another. The
business partners loved each other but not the competition. Diane
loved her dog Nixon “Nix” be he no Democrat. She loved
songbirds, being a member of the Blue Jays. She loved her horse
having won three awards in the Saddle & Bridle Club competitions.
She loved her leather jacket that she wore everywhere. The
townsfolk loved the grieving parents a little too much.
Love is too amorphous to be used to define marriage, and in this movie even an ill defined engagement left the parties at sea. We are not told the judicial verdict but perhaps can take a clue elsewhere. Consulting scientist Marvin Harris on What is Marriage? we read:
One of the problems with the proposition that the nuclear family is the basic building block of all domestic groups is that it rests on the assumption that widely different forms of matings can be called “marriage.” Yet in order to cover the extraordinary diversity of mating behavior characteristic of the human species, the definition of marriage has to be made so broad as to be confusing. —Since the term marriage is too useful to drop altogether, a more narrow definition seems appropriate: Marriage denotes the behavior, sentiments, and rules concerned with coresident heterosexual mating and reproduction in domestic contexts.
To avoid offending people by using marriage exclusively for coresident heterosexual domestic mates, a simple expedient is available. Let such other relationships be designated as “noncoresident marriages”, “man-man marriages”, “woman-woman marriages,” or by any other appropriate specific nomenclature. It is clear that these matings have different ecological, demographic, economic, and ideological implications, so nothing is to be gained by arguing about whether they are “real” marriages. (317–18)
Production Values
“” (2002) was written and directed by Brad Silberling. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon. It also features Holly Hunter, Ellen Pompeo and Dabney Coleman. Hoffman offers a fresh take on a grieving family man trying to expand his horizons. Very satisfactory performances were given by most of the rest. Holly Hunter made a determined prosecutor out to make the best with what she's got. All the acting was quite good.
MPA rated it PG–13 for some sensuality and brief strong language. The location shots were limited but telling. The drama was focused and played to the point. It had great 70s rock music. Runtime is 1 hour 57 minutes.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
There were no bedroom scenes except for Joe waking up from ghostly visitations. I don't suppose there was any talk of an afterlife in a eulogy, not shown, and that left Jojo wondering where her daughter went. Under the ground as far as this movie is concerned. Social life in the village, bar scenes, and family gatherings got represented well enough to fill out the plot but not enough to make us care all that much. This would make a good movie to watch if you're thinking of moving to New England.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: A post office on a slow day. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years with guidance. Special effects: Average special effects. Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day. Suspense: A few suspenseful moments. Overall movie rating: Three and a half stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Fischer, David Hackett. Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America. New York: Oxford UP, 1989. Print, Web.
Follett, Ken. Code to Zero. Copyright © Ken Follett 2000. New York: from the Penguin Group, 2000. Print.
Harris, Marvin. CULTURE, PEOPLE, NATURE: An Introduction to General Anthropology fifth edition. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1988. Print.
Ide, Arthur Frederick. Noah & the Ark: The Influence of Sex, Homophobia and Heterosexism in the Flood Story and its Writing. Las Colinas: Monument Press, 1992. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org