My wife and I went to see the movie “The Intern,” starring
Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway. For
those of you unfamiliar with the plot, De Niro plays a retiree widower who gets
a job at a successful dot-com startup to fill the void left behind after a
lifetime of work and family. Hathaway plays Jules, the founder and CEO of the
company who takes custody of him. The assignment is grudging at first on her
part because she “doesn’t get on well with old people.”
It was a good movie. Funny a lot of the time, occasionally
hilarious (the “Great Email Robbery” comes to mind). There were well-placed
bits of genuine warmth, a few touches of sadness to remind us of mortality, but
these fine. They dealt with the characters as individuals, as people. We could
all empathize with them as people. The few problems I had with the movie was
when it tried to move beyond people, and start preaching to society instead.
There was a particular scene where Jules is dropping her
daughter off at school. (More accurately, Jules is walking her daughter from
the car to the front of the school; Ben, De Niro’s character was acting as her
driver that day.) As the two reach the school entrance, Hathaway is greeted
with minor surprise by the other mothers. They are polite, the words are
friendly, but the tone and manner conveys a lot: They aren’t used to seeing
her, they don’t socialize with her, and they doubt her skills in certain domestic
areas. How much of their attitude is assumed and how much is based on history
is left to the audience.
If I received that kind of treatment, I would tend to shake
it off. Come to think of it, I have, during brief times past when acting as
“house husband,” or when picking up the slack while my wife had to travel for
business. Different blog entry…
Failing that, if I were feeling in a rough mood, I might
take the attitude that the two ladies “had a problem.” Hopefully, I would keep
it to myself, because I can’t really see what kind of benefit there would be to
drawing someone else’s attention to such a small incident. Under no
circumstances would I dump it onto a junior employee, or a temporary employee
that might be hoping to get a permanent position. That isn’t asking for job
related work, but personal and emotional support. To me, that crosses a big
line.
The people writing for Jules disagree apparently, as she
returns to the car and immediately starts griping about “blatant sexism.” And
from that point out in the movie, I felt my attitude toward the character
change. Up until then I find the character extremely admirable: competent,
professional (albeit in a different manner than I was brought up in),
dedicated. I could relate to her challenges, the balancing of work and family,
the struggles to get respect, the long hours that wear you down, making the
other problems seem all the larger. These were problems that can come, will
come, despite our best efforts. These are problems that come because we are
living in the world, at that’s a lot of what life is: problems.
I could see the chip on her should, now. It didn’t wipe out
the better traits of the character, not by far, but it was there, and it drew
my attention. I found myself looking for similar messaging in other parts of
the movie which, of course, I found. Human nature, I’m afraid. Once you draw
someone’s attention to looking for something, they are bound to find it,
intended or not. It’s kind of a spoiler.
Later on in the movie, De Niro’s character comes across the
same women as he takes Jules’ daughter to a birthday party. Using his kind,
subtle style, he relates to them that Jules is the kind of woman that they
should really be rooting for, “one of their own” out there pursing the dream
and making it big.
I couldn’t help but ask “why?” She doesn’t associate with
the other ladies. She hardly knows them. She certainly doesn’t empathize with
them or respect them. Nothing that Jules has done or accomplished has benefited
them. Whatever the rewards in life the women have received have been the
results of their separate choices. The same applies to the costs and
challenges. So if the mothers who stay at home receive little or no “cheering” from
the women and mothers who go to work, why should the mothers who go to work
expect any more?
As I said before, there are a lot of admirable traits to
Jules, a lot of strength. But there’s also a fragile brittleness. At the first
sign that her choices are being criticized, part of her shatter, forming jagged
edges that seek to tear and rend. But she isn’t just tearing at the ones who
criticize her, but at society as a whole, and it’s there that we move from
social commentary to irrational irony: She criticizes society because it has
failed to banish criticism. She rants against us because we can’t meet the
standards that she herself can’t, without ever acknowledging that it’s as much
on her as anyone else.
It’s a small reflection on society. So many seem to believe
that we should strive for an atmosphere with complete acceptance, without “judgment.”
I can’t see it, myself. The only way I could possibly imagine a world without
criticism is to first have a world where no one performs actions or harbors
attitudes worthy of criticism. It just ain’t gonna happen. Not in this world.
In the twelfth of Luke, Christ admonished us to not fear the
ones who could simply do us physical harm, but to fear God, who had ultimate
power over our destiny. If we are not to fear those who wish us physical harm,
how much less who merely criticize and nothing more? My mother used a much common
reference when teaching me the same thing. It started out “Sticks and stones…”
It’s a lesson that society seems to forget today, and that’s
a tragedy. No matter how many training courses we attend and speech codes we
promote and “anti-bullying” laws we pass, mean words aren’t going out of style
anytime soon. Fortunately for people of faith, the words of God last longer
still. In fact, He promises that His Word lasts forever. All the strength, none
of the brittleness. Sounds like a winner to me.
