2017 Best Picture Nominees

Warning: this article contains spoilers, especially for the movies Arrival and Manchester by the Sea. Continue at your own risk.

I watched a bit of the Oscars last night, although I went to bed before the Best Picture kerfuffle. Usually I don't see many movies that are nominated for best picture; for the last three years, it's been two each. For some reason, this year I'd seen five. Here are some thoughts.

La La Land: The music and dancing and such were delightful, but I'm not sure that the movie deserved to be nominated for best picture. Quick synopsis: Emma Stone (best actress winner) is an aspiring actress; Ryan Gosling is a jazz musician who wants to open his own club. They fall in love, but come to the point where they need to decide if their relationship is more important than their individual dreams.

A writer friend loved it, saying it was an illustration of what you have to sacrifice for your art. And Alicia Cohn on ChristianityToday.com compared it to the holiness of our Christian calling and how the only relationship with comparable weight is the one we have with Christ.

That would be true, but. At the point in their relationship where the characters have to make that choice, they are together. They're living together and have been for several months. I know this gets into the sticky business of "What constitutes marriage?" and "Hey, this is a secular* film and you can't expect characters in a movie to live by Christian standards." And even that it's hard to mesh a new relationship with an old dream. I totally get that. From a Christian standpoint, however, it rang a little icky. Leaving a committed relationship to strive for worldly goals instead of acknowledging the commitment and continuing to work together? Maybe it just struck too close to home because I got married instead of continuing in the Air Force. Maybe it's a cautionary tale to show you shouldn't get too serious in a relationship until you're sure of what you want. And once you are serious, realize you're going to spend the rest of your life making sacrifices and finding new dreams to follow together.

Hidden Figures: The story of the African American women who performed high-level math for the fledgling space race is well known now, but nearly unheard of two years ago. Taraji Henson was subdued but fierce as mathematician Katherine Johnson. Octavia Spencer was like a stalking lion as Dorothy Vaughan, the supervisor who clandestinely trained her team to program NASA's new computers. And Janelle Monae...her portrayal of Mary Jackson, the woman who had to fight the culture to be recognized as an engineer, was way too convicting to me with the unused engineering degree. All three of these women made such sacrifices that I and the other women in STEM fields benefited from greatly. I was glad to learn whom it was I owed.

The movie takes place in Virginia in 1961, in the heart of the Civil Rights Movement. The women had to deal with racism at work, sexism at home, the hope of a better future, and the desire to keep both their kids and their jobs safe. They did so by working hard and being very good at what they did. When they did react to the injustices, it was gently — the Fruit of the Spirit gentleness that comes out of the strength of being right and a desire to help others see the truth of things and be better people (Galatians 5:22-23).

The movie illustrated that there are different ways to protest; some are loud and public, and some are quiet, but both are necessary. Sometimes the best way to protest is to do your job and help others along their way. It takes an incredible strength to lead from behind, knowing you're right and the world is unjust, and I don't think it was happenstance that it was women who were so adroit at this. Mark Rylance, in his lead-up to the best supporting actress award (Viola Davis, Fences) said "sometimes, the most supportive thing is to oppose." He added, "Something that women seem to be better at than men: opposing without hatred" (Proverbs 15:1).

Arrival: Amy Adams's character Louise Banks goes through her day as a linguistics professor quietly, nearly unemotionally, even as alien pods descend on a startled earth. She is chosen by the US Army to accompany them to Montana to try to communicate with the new guests — things like "Who are you?" "Where are you from?" and "Are you going to kill us all?" She quickly realizes they can understand each other better using written language rather than vocal, and goes about analyzing and interpreting their writing, which looks like a circle with various spikes depending on the meaning.

The film is based on the belief espoused by linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf who asserted that language determines how we think. For instance, ancient Greek with all its prefixes and suffixes and roots would be more amenable to scientific discovery and philosophical investigation than a simpler and less flexible language. In Arrival, the aliens need humans to understand their language because their language develops neural pathways so that beings can access all the points in their individual timeline. In three thousand years, humans will need this skill to help the aliens in the war they have pre-seen.

Throughout Louise's time with the aliens, she has regular flashbacks of her life with her daughter, who died of a terrible congenital disease as a young teen. But as Louise comes to fully understand the alien language, we realize that they weren't flashbacks; they were flash-forwards. Her marriage to and divorce from her daughter's father; and her daughter's birth, life, suffering, and death are all yet to come. She knows what will happen in her life. As the Army camp breaks up, she hugs Jeremy Renner's physicist, with whom she'd been working. She sees their life together and the fact that he will leave when faced with their daughter's future. But all she says is, "I forgot how good it felt to be held by you."

I thought this spoke powerfully of what Jesus must have gone through. He knew what He was getting into by coming to save us. He knew He would have to face horrible pain and separation from the One He loved the most. But He did it anyway — with grace — for the promise of the good things to come (Hebrews 12:1-2).

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* Every time I try to type "secular" it comes out "sexular." Every.time.

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Published 2-27-17