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My Life
Bob Jones .........
Michael Keaton
Gail Jones ........
Nicole Kidman
Paul ..............
Bradley Whitford
Theresa ...........
Queen Latifah
Bill ..............
Michael Constantine
Rose ..............
Rebecca Schull
Dr. Mills .........
Mark Lowenthal
Columbia presents a film written and
directed by Bruce Joel Rubin.
A film like this can teach us a lot
about modern attitudes toward religion, for it deals with death and
dying, perhaps the one area where even modern people still
think seriously.
Bob Jones, born in Detroit as Bob Ivanovich, is dying of cancer while his wife is
expecting his first son. The film's resident theologian, a Chinese folk
healer, diagnoses the underlying problem as repressed anger. Indeed, Bob
has been angry at his father since boyhood, because his father spent so
little time with him. The father was a dealer in scrap metal, which
Bob thinks should be described more honestly as "junk." Bob
hated Detroit and the junk business. He left for Los Angeles at
the first opportunity and became a public relations man. (Did the authors
of the script see an analogy between Hollywood public relations experts
and junk dealers?) He became successful, but had few real friends. In an
embarrassing search for testimonials, he finds no one who can say anything
much on his behalf beyond commending his business prowess and charitable
contributions. Even his wife Gail, who deeply loves him, complains about
being left out of his struggles. Evidently his anger has kept him
from any deep human relationships.
He also, evidently, is angry at God.
As a boy, he once prayed that God would bring a circus to his back yard
after school. (His father had promised to take him to the circus,
but had failed to do so because of the press of work.) The
film overwhelms us with the earnest sincerity of the prayer.
He invites all his classmates to see the wonderful circus. But
there is no circus; the kids must all be sent home. Both earthly
father and heavenly father have let Bob down, the film implies.
So Bob is estranged from God and
men, and the disease is progressing. Until the very end of the movie, he
looks perfectly healthy for the most part-- a rather awkward element in
the film's portrayal. But Bob's mind is preoccupied by his fate
and by the future. At first, this preoccupation actually
increases his estrangement from the world. So determined is he to keep
a record of his last days for his yet-unborn son that he sees
the entire world through a video camera. He is a spectator, not
a participant. It is as if he has died already and sees the
world from some ghostly realm outside it.
But he does change. He visits
Detroit again for his brother's wedding, and he actually lays aside the
video camera to join his brother in some ethnic dances. (At the beginning
of the movie, I would have guessed the family was Jewish, but they
turn out to be Ukrainian.) Still, the old hatreds resurface when
he talks to his parents. They condemn his disrespect: that he
left his family, that he changed the family name, that he hardly
ever called them. He in turn raises all of his old complaints.
The Chinese healer ministers to him.
Orthodox medicine cannot help, but clearly this healer has powers beyond
the standard treatments. He has healed others, and he keeps Bob
going far beyond the expected time of his death, so that he does meet his
new son. The healer's hands put Bob in touch with his inner self, which,
we learn, is the source of wholeness. Bob has a vision of the great light
which is this transcendental ego. But the anger-generated tumors grow too
fast even for the Chinese healer, who advises Bob to prepare for the next
life, reincarnation.
The film reinforces the
reincarnation theme as Bob's death-watch parallels Gail's pregnancy and
childbirth. In both cases, ice cubes are wiped across the lips, breathing
is labored and disciplined, and the end is a release into joyous abandon.
Everyone is reconciled after a
fashion. The parents come to Los Angeles. Bob sort of apologizes for his
unkindness to them, but it's a Hollywood type of apology: he says in
effect that the whole thing is really nobody's fault; such problems
just happen and nobody's to blame. Thus estrangement is dissolved
in moral relativism and Bob is set free to be reincarnated. Is
he also reconciled to God? Not in any obvious way. God plays no
role in the New Age theology which informs Bob's last days. In
a morally relativist universe, there is no God to be reconciled to.
The film lingers over his dying for a longer time than I was comfortable with; perhaps it intended to. I guess that I was supposed to find Bob's death a triumphant experience, but I did not. If the film is right, and reality is an impersonal process without moral distinctions, then neither death nor life offer any hope.