This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Society's Child
Plot Overview
The constabulary of Massena, upstate
New York, patrol with the logo To
Protect and Serve emblazoned on their vehicles. Police Chief
Gerry Bailey failed for five years to protect the girls in his small
community from a female serial killer/abductor in their midst, until
they caught her in 1998 by “dumb luck.” Elizabeth Caufield
(Kaye Tuckerman) was a maternity ward nurse who seemed
“normal,” likable even. When they put her away, Gerry
lost an easy lay. His daughter Amy (Anni Krueger) upon graduation
from NYU brought home
her black beau Jamie Nwosu (Chukwudi Iwuji) who failed to win her
family's approval, but he did get hired to fill the vacancy for police
chief. You win some and you lose some.
By more blam luck, nurse
Caufield—“Mother” to the girls—escapes
incarceration after twenty years during a prisoner transport,
and Jamie fearing she will come after Christina Bowden (Lexi Johnson)
the one girl who'd got away from her earlier, has gone all out to
serve by stationing himself as guard outside her home. All
well and good, but it seems Christina was her mother's favorite, which
was why she was originally spared in a general slaughter. It's those
associated with her who start dropping like flies. Jamie figures,
“Something does not add up.” You don't say, Sherlock.
Christina has settled locally with
a soft heart for the townspeople she feels responsible for on account
of her loony “mother.” She's now a beloved elementary school
teacher who is taking steps to adopt 15-year-old Lisa Spencer (Willow
McCarthy) whose checkered past was not her fault. She lovingly observes her
out the window at recess while working on her mail correspondence. She
teaches her class a ditty:
Listen closely and pay attentionCause and effect. It's elementary, Mr. Watson.
To the what and the where.
Because when this is over,
You will wonder, how did
We get from here to there.
Ideology
The film opens with a father telling
a morose Tommy, “It's your first game, you know. … You're
not gonna win every game.” Do-overs are woven into the very plot
(“I think we all deserve a second chance”) of this movie.
Elizabeth is portrayed as a religious fanatic, having taught her children
some Bible story. We all know the first, sad story of Adam & Eve who
were blessed (Gen. 1:28) until they ate
the forbidden fruit (Gen. 3:6.) They
were then given a bifurcated burden, women to have added pain in childbirth
and implicit subjection to their husbands (Gen. 3:16) and men to have more difficult toil
on treacherous ground, (Gen. 3:17-19)
“cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it
all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to
thee—” Let's play the fanatic and look for a second chance at
the latter.
Noah's father Lamech had (Gen. 5:29) “called his name Noah, saying,
This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands,
because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.” Here's a
chance for Noah to pass on through his sons better work conditions.
(Gen. 9:18-19) “And the sons
of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth:
and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah:
and of them was the whole earth overspread.” He set an example
for the work break, to wit, after the flood one day, Noah took some
leisure time, stripped down in his tent, and got drunk. Mrs Noah
being a good wife made herself scarce while Noah decompressed
from his day's labor. She went off to visit her youngest son Ham telling
him not to bother his father. Disobedient Ham came knocking and discovered
Noah plastered. He went and mocked him to his two older brothers (Gen. 9:20-23). Ham was perturbed that his
father had gotten naked without setting about to procreate as God
commanded. He also didn't like his father taking a recess from rebuilding
the wrecked world. Noah's rejoinder was along the lines of, “Oy! Vey! You want we should
have children and work harder? Okay, your descendants (Canaan) can be
slaves to your brothers. Oy!
Vey!” (Gen. 9:24-27).
In biblical wisdom terms it's like, (Prov. 30:17) “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.” But there's a biblical alternative to mutilation in, (Exodus 21:26) “And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake.” Ham and his offspring went into servitude rather than his having an eye put out or whatever. The animals went into the ark two-by-two, and Noah dealt with his sons Shem and Japheth as a pair. There is no fourth son to pair with Ham the youngest, so Ham gets paired with his own youngest son Canaan who will inherit Ham's deal anyway. The lines of Noah's other two sons Shem and Japheth would be the masters and Ham's line represented here by Canaan would be the slaves. Writer Bodie Hodge holds forth that: “Generally, from the Middle East in the land of Shinar (modern-day Iraq, where Babel was), Japheth's descendants went north toward Europe and Asia, Ham's went toward Africa, and Shem's remained in the Middle East” (183). The servitude of Ham as passing to his youngest son Canaan also encompassed his eldest son Cush, see Gen. 10:6. Cush is Hebrew for black, whose descendants settled in Africa. Canaan is the youngest son of Ham carrying the curse on the whole family by a figure of speech called a synecdoche whereby a part stands for the whole. (Jasher 73:35) “For the Lord our God gave Ham the son of Noah, and his children and all his seed, as slaves to the children of Shem and to the children of Japheth, and unto their seed after them for slaves, forever.”
This punishment may seem excessive until we look at the one similar incident in the Bible, of mocking the exposed bald head of the prophet Elisha, (2Kings 2:23-24) “And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.” The kids liked hair rather than baldness; they got a hairy bear. Ham got a better deal than that, servitude rather than destruction. Ham touted hard work and procreation, so his children would be under servitude.
In this movie Jamie was a second generation immigrant from Nigeria, Niger being Latin for black. Nigeria was visited by Europeans in the 15th century and became the hub of human trafficking. Ordinarily, a girl bringing home an interested guy graduated from college and in a demographic known for their drive to success would be lauded for her selection. But he's black.
Anthropologist Desmond Morris—best
known for his book, The Naked Ape—writes concerning
subconscious judgments: “Pupil Signals are unconsciously emitted.
… If we see something mildly distasteful, they
contract. … When liberally-minded people were shown
photographs of black males kissing white females, although
all of the subjects spoke approvingly of racial equality …
their pupils split them neatly into two groups—the liberals
‘at heart’ whose pupils matched their stated beliefs and
the ‘merely persuaded liberals’, who despite their praise
for racial integration, revealed pinprick pupils when confronted
with the black-kissing-white display” (169–70.) Gerry's
father-in-law was heavily into politics and he himself was trying
to recover his image after failing the town. He was unwilling to risk
alienating the townsfolk more with his daughter's black intended
(“her family had higher aspirations for their daughter.”)
It was enough that he greased the boy's way into the police chief opening.
It's like a passage from a Bruce Zimmerman novel: “He had this image of himself as a real enlightened character, liberal politics, defender of the downtrodden, all that. Very sixties. … At the grocery store he'd spend fifteen minutes in front of the coffee rack, trying to buy his beans from the least fascist country. Coffee-producing nations tended to be repressive. He wanted coffee from Sweden” (13.) But not his family suitors from Nigeria.
The key scripture in this movie is,
(Prov. 30:33) “Surely the churning
of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth
forth blood: so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife.”
The nose is particularly susceptible to bleeding. In this picture
it's a C–section delivery that produces ample blood. Should
be expected just as some subjects are naturally contentious in a family,
like a white daughter bringing home a black suitor. Amy should have
been able to anticipate it, and if she's unwilling or unable to oppose
her family, then she's squandered an opportunity to find
somebody suitable at college, and she has lingering effects from
a love that was real nonetheless. If for lack of stable
love relations, she becomes sexually adventurous, she could harm society
in other ways, too. For that reason she'd be a proper society's child
for not going down the black-and-white road in the first place.
Churning liquid milk over time produces
solid butter. Regular church visits, listening from outside the church
during evening mass, had a calming effect on the captive girls, changing
their state of mind. A steady stream of mail to an unstable inmate,
dishing the dirt on people in her favorite's life, is likely to change
her state of mind as well, and not for the better. I wouldn't want
someone writing about me.
Production Values
“” (2021) was written and directed by Michael Morrissey. It stars Chukwudi Iwuji, Lexi Johnson, and Kaye Tuckerman. Actress Lexi Johnson and black Chukwudi Iwuji play the main characters failing at social responsibility despite their best intentions. Actress Kate Tuckerman plays a very lethal Elizabeth whose age hasn't slowed her down none. The modest cast brings it in their respective roles.
It's certified TV-MA. Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity. This story is very well written, a thinking man's mystery with its share of twists. It's 2 hours long.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
If you're an inveterate couch potato,
you'll likely experience this movie as a boring first half with a
swiss cheese ending. If you pay closer attention, however, it won't
seem that way at all. Or you may want to view it a second time. It's one of
those movies that will appeal to the mystery fan most of all.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Decent action scenes. Suitability for children: Not rated for movies, suitable for mature TV audiences. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Five stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Print. Software.
The Book of Jasher. Translated from the Hebrew into English (1840). Photo lithographic reprint of exact edition published by J.H. Parry & Co., Salt Lake City: 1887. Muskogee, OK: Artisan Pub., 1988. Print.
Hodge, Bodie. Tower of Babel: The Cultural History of Our Ancestors. Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Pub., 2013. Print.
Morris, Desmond. Manwatching. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1977. Print.
Zimmerman, Bruce. Thicker Than Water. Copyright © 1991 by Bruce Zimmerman. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, First Edition. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org