Much in the manner of Curtis Hanson’s Wonder Boys, the very funny and bracingly intelligent Smart People concerns a college instructor meandering through life until unexpected developments force a cascade of personal changes. Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid), a recently widowed literature professor, is a numb and chilly intellectual who rebuffs his students, ignores his all-but-emancipated teen kids (Ashton Holmes and Juno’s Ellen Page), and spurns cries for financial assistance from his ne’er-do-well but rather soulful adopted brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church).After an accident lands Lawrence in the hospital and deprives him of the right to drive, someone else falls into his bleak sphere: Janet (Sarah Jessica Parker), a physician and former student of Lawrence who remembers her disappointment in him as a teacher and role model. Against all logic, Janet and Lawrence become a romantic item, a choice for which neither of them is entirely prepared. Meanwhile, Chuck and Vanessa (Page) enter an awkward phase in their relationship as niece and uncle, just another sign that the Wetherhold clan has become too insular and self-referential.
Screenwriter Mark Poirier’s inspired and literate story sets up lots of chaos, attitude, and cross-conflict, then hangs back and lets the characters verbally spar, much to our great amusement. What's happening, however, are deep changes in relationships and destinies that Lawrence and the others naturally resist, until they can’t. Director Noam Murro knows one of his most important contributions to the film is to stay out of the characters’ way and provide Poirier’s barbed humor a supportive setting. Quaid is outstanding as the pivotal figure in this tale, a man who looks creaky and washed up beyond his years, but who is not entirely past redemption.—Tom Keogh
Currently, I am reading Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deificiation in the Christian Tradition. It is about how the Church historically has understood 2 Peter 1:4, concerning the promises of God through which we have been made “partakers of the divine nature.” In it, I have located a few intriguing quotes from early Church Fathers.Our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself. (Against Heresies, Book 5, Preface)From Athanasius (4th Century):
For He was made man that we might be made God. (On the Incarnation, chapter 54)
Therefore He was not man, and then became God, but He was God, and then became man, and that to deify us. (Against the Arians, Discourse 1, Chapter 11)
For He has become Man, that He might deify us in Himself, and He has been born of a woman, and begotten of a Virgin, in order to transfer to Himself our erring generation, and that we may become henceforth a holy race, and ‘partakers of the Divine Nature,’ as blessed Peter wrote. (Personal Letter 60:4)
Recently, I watched Lars and the Real Girl with my family. Set in a modern, small Midwestern town, the plot centers on a reclusive young man named Lars Lindstrom (touchingly but deftly played by Ryan Gosling). He decides one day to buy a life-size realistic doll from a mail-order company and introduces her to the world as his girlfriend, Bianca. To Lars, she is very real and he relates to her as if she was a real person, carrying on conversation with her and speaking on her behalf to others because, as he explains, she is Brazilian and speaks no English.
Bianca’s story, as it emerges from Lars, is tragic. She is wheelchair bound and Lars is concerned when she becomes mysteriously ill. He takes her to the doctor, who engages him in revealing conversation while she undergoes “treatments.” Lars loves Bianca and wants to marry, but Bianca has refused. She is lonely and afraid and, like Lars, has endured a traumatic childhood.
In the end, having learned to let go of his fear and alienation, he then bravely lets go of the thing that helped him return. Now he is ready to meet the one who has been patiently waiting for him — the real girl.
"When you know, even for a moment, that it's your time, then you can walk with the power of a thousand generations."Young men see what is, old men see what will be. Both aspects speak of awareness of who we are, where we are and why we are. God is from eternity—He takes the long view. His plans and purposes endure. "He remembers His covenant forever, the word which He commanded, for a thousand generations" (Psalm 105:8).— Bruce Cockburn, Dream Like Mine
Your young men shall see visions,
Your old men shall dream dreams.Acts 2:17
