Oscars get real

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has awarded Oscars for the best acting and film making of 2006. This month, Anglican Media chooses winners using a different set of criteria.

I really believe film can be used to reflect upon life and teach us valuable lessons. The films and performances I have picked this year don’t necessarily model the best ways to live, but they do give valuable lessons about human nature, actions and consequences, and opportunities for redemption.

Best Film

All five films nominated for Best Picture would make worthy winners. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel examines how cultural differences make negotiating modern life so difficult. Martin Scorsese is back to his gangster film-making best with The Departed, dealing with trust and deception.

But Little Miss Sunshine is my pick for best film. It’s the only comedy nominated in this category but it’s hardly light fluff. The film deals with death, the superficiality of modern society and the importance of family. It is occasionally crude, never didactic but always thoughtful.

The film reminds us that the goal of personal success should not get in the way of family. The strength and integrity of our relationships are more important and more satisfying than the goals we might strive for.

It is a worthwhile reminder for the Christian that even though we may be members of an individualistic society, we are part of a larger body in Christ. The family unit should model what the Christian church should be worldwide.

Best Actor

In the Best Actor category, Will Smith’s and Ryan Gosling’s performances in The Pursuit of Happyness and Half Nelson, respectively, depict triumphs of the human spirit through adversity. They are inspiring films, though both imply that humans already have everything they need inside of them to be better. God appears to be absent.

That is why I am going with the Golden Globes on this one and giving the award to Forest Whitaker for his performance as evil dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland.

It would be easier to deal with monstrous people if they were from another species or planet, but the scary truth is that these people are human just like us. When the African dictator seized power in a military coup in 1971 he was initially welcomed both within Uganda and by the international community. An internal memo in the British Foreign Office described him as “a splendid type and a good football player”.

Whitaker brings a jolly, personable and charismatic character to the screen. But the film in no way downplays the horror of the murder of almost half a million people during Amin’s nine years as Ugandan president. In fact, the film is disturbingly graphic in its portrayals of brutal violence and undisciplined sexuality.

Whitaker’s performance is a reminder that evil people do not arrive twirling their moustaches; rather they are often like the charming wolves in sheep’s clothing that Jesus warns us about in Matthew chapter 7.

Best Actress

In the Best Actress category Helen Mirren’s performance as the sympathetic Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen is certainly Oscar-worthy. So too is Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada. Her portrayal of a career-driven magazine editor shows the detrimental effects of putting work before relationships.

However, it’s Kate Winslet’s performance in Little Children as Sarah, a young mum who starts an affair with a stay-at-home dad, Brad, that I felt brilliantly exposed a hard-to-watch but commonplace occurrence in modern life. Sarah is one of a group of mums who spy on Brad each day as he visits the park with his son. They each fantasise about him, but only Sarah has the courage to approach him. It begins with a kiss in the park – which disgusts the other mums – and ends with sexual betrayal in Sarah’s home.

Sarah justifies her choice: her husband is not interested in her and her daughter is too young to know what’s happening. However, this couple’s determination to pursue their own fulfilment is portrayed as destructive to those around them and ultimately self-defeating. Sarah’s behaviour shows that adultery is never ‘adult’ behaviour; it’s as immature as the behaviour of the Little Children that the film’s title suggests.

Thankfully, the film’s conclusion offers hope for redemption. The narrator gives us Sarah’s final realisation: “You couldn’t change the past, but the future could be a different story and it had to start somewhere”.

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