A few nights ago my wife and I decided we wanted to stay in a watch a movie. She told me that she would borrow a movie from her parent’s house as she was walking out the door, she had to run up there that night to take care their dog. The movie she returned with was Little Children. I had never heard of the film and my first impression after looking at to the cover of this dvd, was that it was your everyday average, romantic “chick flick.” I mean come on, Kate Winslet is in it. Whenever I think of her I think of Titanic and Celine Deon.

I read the back of the dvd and thought I would keep an open mind. It sounded mildly interesting. This from IMBD:

The lives of two lovelorn spouses from separate marriages, a registered sex offender, and a disgraced ex-police officer intersect as they struggle to resist their vulnerabilities and temptations.

To my surprise, the movie turned out to be unexpectedly adept and  captivating. The little synopsis above pretty much sums up what the film is about–resisting temptation.

The movie primarily deals with two people, who in the midst of unsatisfactory marriages and personal dilemmas, meet each other and begin to have a torrid affair. But what made the movie particularly interesting to me–and what this post is actually about–is the other minor story line that was being told in parallel. It was a story about a convicted sex offender and the troubled ex-cop who persecuted him.

The film’s setting is your typical picturesque, lily white suburb, filled with seemingly happy and perfect nuclear families. The plot thickens when sex offender Ronnie McGorvey, who was convicted for exposing himself to a child, moves into the neighborhood into the home of his mother, upon whom he has a pseudo-Oedipus complex. Ex-police officer Larry Hedges takes it upon himself as his primary goal in life to rid the “perfect” family neighborhood of this scourge.

Perhaps what I appreciated most about this film is that it zooms right into the turbulent life of Ronnie and his mother, revealing a mothers unconditional love for her sick son. Throughout their saddening and heart-felt conversations about life, death and love, not to mention their endurance of Larry’s merciless persecution and mockery, the film forces you to look beyond Ronnie’s detestable perversion to see a despaired and sick human being. The story, in some slight way, actually attempts to view the human side of what many consider are the most heartless, evil and unforgiveable monsters alive–pediphiles.

The film, for me, did a great job of evoking compassion and showing that everyone does indeed have a story to tell. For example, we eventually learn that it’s Larry’s guilt of killing a kid during a robbery that leads to his absurd, remunerative behavior and why he feels obligated to save the neighborhood from the dangerous “pervert.”

When I’m faced with a beautiful story (or work of art) like this, a story that moves me to the point of tears or shakes my soul or causes something inside me to rupture, shift, transform or see things differently, I am forced to ask why this is happening and what exactly is causing it. This is the job of aesthetics, and my aesthetic is Jesus. I read the grace, forgiveness and beauty of Jesus into this particular story to no end. To me, a story or piece of art that, as Emmanual Levinas would say, causes us to see past the color of the others eyes is no less than divinely inspired.

Painting: Havana’s Black by Helen Verhoeven – oil on panel, 45.7 x 61 cm (18 x 24″ inches), 2004

Tags:emmanuel levinasforgivenessgraceHelen VerhoevenJesusLittle Childrenlovepediphiliathe other