Following the fish

I’ve been a fan of Pico Iyer’s essays for a while now, in part because he is one of the most talented travel writers around (I think one of my first blogs was about him). He has a meandering, thoughtful style with words, and a history of travel of the sort where he becomes a resident, not just a visitor to a new place.
Reading his piece in the Magazine this Sunday (Net time is oddly out of sync with real time), I’m drawn into the speculative proposition that American movies have completely abandoned the happy ending in their portrayal of daily life, at the same time that politicians, in their speechmaking, campaigning, prognosticating, have embraced it.

He has, this year, lots of support for this, Mystic River being just one of a multitude of movies where bestiality gets compounded, never resolved, and no one is spared in the end. Contrast this, Iyer says, with the campaigning in Democratic primaries, or even speechmaking coming from the White House.

Okay, but has Hollywood gotten an accurate read on the American pulse? Or has it just been a momentary letting go of the cliché, almost as a eulogy to the tragedy that was September 11th, because at the time, who could even think of a favorable outcome?

The feel-good movie is, these days, not a very good movie (though the Academy is pretending that DKeaton really was superb in her role as the aging lover). And it remains cool to speak well of movies that offer a spiraling disintegration rather than a good resolution. Personally, I thought Mystic River was outstanding, but I also thoroughly enjoyed “Runaway Jury,” even though I admit, it was a bit of a packaged deal. I was pleased when a law prof, soon to be Dean at a top law school in the country showed it to his Civil Procedure class and said enthusiastically “wasn’t that great? I just loved that movie!” or words to that effect.

While we’re all trying to stay so cool and display our astute levels of awareness, Hollywood is watching. The good dramas that offer no hope have always been there, and they’ll continue. What’s missing now is the proliferation of antidote movies – ones that hold out the possibility of resolution, at least for that moment, while they have our attention. The politicians have long figured out that deep down, in the larger scheme of things, we are believers in justice, equality, love, fairness even if we’ve managed to encounter just the opposite in our lives.

It’s interesting that the one movie not dismissed by critics this year that offered hope, was one that took 90 minutes of anxiety and worry before it got there. Of course, the movie was “Finding Nemo,” brilliantly executed, down to the last flip of the fin. But only in animation is the best of the best backing exuberance over defeat, happiness over depression. I’m hoping Nemo will not be an anomaly. Great movies should span the range of emotions we’re capable of living with.