Feel-Good Movies

I am certainly among the most ignorant of movie critics, but I do notice a thing or two now and then. For example, I have observed that some movies are more sentimental than others; they pull at the emotions and heartstrings. Perhaps they could be called feel-good movies. They inevitably have a happy ending where the monster is killed, the heroine is rescued, the city is saved, and the heroes live, presumably, happily ever after. Another name for these movies might very well be fairy tale movies. And they do wax abundant during the holiday season. These feel-good movies are often criticized for being contrived and unreal, substituting superficial sentimentality for a depth of plot and a sensibility of the real. I would like to say a word in defense of these seemingly light, affected pieces.

One of the more well known and prolific perpetrators of the feel-good movie was the Italian-American film director Frank Capra. The sentimentality of many of his fell-good movies was so notorious that many of his works came to be known under the heading of “Capra Corn”. And yet they are still beloved today, many decades after they were made, after CGI and surround sound and digital everything has left them reeling in a bin of dusty ancientness. Why do some of us (I am certainly among this tribe) find them so compelling? Certainly there is a pleasantness to the resolved and elated emotions that we experience when we watch them, but might their goodness run somewhat deeper?

On New Years Day I read an article by Rod Bennett (recommended to me by my friend Chris — a.k.a. LifeIsAPolka) entitled “The Gospel According to Frank Capra” (http://oldarchive.godspy.com/culture/The-Gospel-According-to-Frank-Capra-by-Rod-Bennett.cfm.html). In the article, Rod Bennett discussed the sentimentality of Capra’s movies and the depth of Capra himself. He explored some of the challenging implications of faith and doubt in these movies despite, or rather because of, their sentimental nature. He focused especially on Capra’s movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” (one of my all time favorites).

The Capra Corn movies of which the article speaks (and others in the same spirit) have a decided habit of happy endings. This is what many of the critics find so unreal about them: they are rather more like fairy tales than they are like the human life we know. But then, that is really the entire point. I believe the happy endings betray the deeper good. At the bottom of the page of Bennett’s article, a commenter mentions J. R. R. Tolkien’s concept of a ‘eucatastrophe’. In his powerful essay “On Fairy Stories” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Fairy-Stories), Tolkien describes the eucatastrophe as the “Consolation of the Happy Ending”; it is opposite of Tragedy, and, in Tolkien’s opinion, “the eucatastrophic tale is the true form of fairy-tale, and its highest function”. In the words of wikipedia, eucatastrophe is “the sudden turn of events at the end of a story which result in the protagonist's well-being”. It is what brings about the ‘happily ever after’, a sort of poetic justice and redemption.

As I read Bennett’s article my mind was carried away on downy waves of eucatastrophe. I was struck by the parallels between many of the ‘feel good’ movies and the gospel of Christ. Perhaps the reason that Capra’s movies are rejected as Capra Corn is that they are being made metaphors of the wrong thing. They are not the infomercials of positive thinking, the purveyors of sappy platitudes by those who should know better. It just may be that these ‘fairy-tale’ movies are not about optimism in ordinary humanity, they are about optimism in extraordinary humanity, that is, the more-than-justified optimism found the man Jesus Christ, the man who is God. These movies really are fairy tales (or close to fairy tales) that do a splendid job of exhibiting what Tolkien’s eucatastrophe, and the grand eucatastrophe of the universe, the real eucatastrophe is, of course, the gospel.

This notion brings together into one many of the thoughts and feelings I have about feel-good movies (perhaps it was no accident that I was watching ‘Rocky’ while I was reading the Capra article, and that I had seen some of ‘Anne of Green Gables’ earlier in the day – both movies that move me, sometimes to tears). As far as the movie ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ goes, I think Bennett may have made the closest connection with the gospel when he alluded to John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this, which one lay down his life for his friends.” And there are likely more connections (of some depth, I think).

The question that is now raised in my mind is what parallels to the gospel might we find in other feel-good movies. Consider, for instance, the movie ‘A Christmas Story’, where little Ralphie is in Christmas quest of a Red Ryder BB gun. I have not, even in the recent past, been a great fan of this movie; however, as I have pondered in the past couple of weeks and discussed it with others I have discovered a peculiar beauty in it: the beauty of childlikeness. And childlikeness, according to our Lord, is a key quality of those in the kingdom of heaven. Ralphie and his brother display childlikeness over and over and over again. My initial reaction is to complain that Ralphie is so selfishly motivated, and then I remember how selfish I am in this heaven walk, and how our heavenly Father looks down on me (and all His children) loving me beyond my selfishness (Thank you, Father). The eucatastrophe still comes; the eucatastrophe must depend on something more than good little boys and girls. What could it be? The goodness of a spotless savior (we must grant here that trying to find the spotless savior in Ralphie’s father would be overreaching the metaphor). So can you think of any more gospel parallels in those much maligned feel-good movies? There are so many sparkling facets of the gospel; one would think that there are not yet enough of these fairy tale movies (Hollywood, are you listening?). Note that I am not saying that such gospel parallels don’t exist in the non-feel-good movies; it’s just that they would likely be less complete: the eucatastrophe such a powerful portrayal of the victory won in the resurrection of Christ.

I am thinking that it is no accident that many of us are predisposed to being moved with hope and longing by feel-good movies. Maybe this feel-good-ness should tell us something of just how deeply these longings and hopes go into the very core of our being. In this sense it is possible to view many movies as really a continuation of Adam naming the animals, taking his God-given imagination and poring it over the living things of God’s creation; for what is more living and beautiful and worthy of imagination than every speck of the blessed gospel?

Of course the feel-good movies, viewed in this way, are just reflections (some faint and some bright) of the great story, the great fairy tale, the gospel. It is the great fairy tale that does not merely captivate minds, it creates them. The ones who complain about the ‘feel-good’ movies not being real are being too narrow; they are neglecting the place where the euchatastrophe, the happy joyous ever after ending is most real: in Jesus Christ our Lord. And, from that we may take an additional comfort, because if I am in Christ I am given the privilege by His grace to enter into that blessed eucatastrophe. Thank you, Father for such a beautiful gift; only You make it reality.