It's Always Quite A Fall

It seems that anyone can get a job as a film critic.  The majority of modern movies are crap, and criticizing crap is all too easy.  You simply say "It stinks" in as many clever ways as possible, and smugly move on.  But every so often there is the beautiful exception that proves the rule, a film that is so far above the average that most reviewers miss it altogether.  Not wanting to miss the opportunity at smugness, you should know that none of the reviewers at The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Washington Post, USA Today, or even The San Francisco Examiner or Chronicle (the location of the film's action) saw The Game for what it is:  perhaps the single greatest Christian allegory to come out of the motion picture industry since its inception.

The problem with explicit attempts, no matter how earnest, to render the Christian story or the impact of the Christian story into film is that you can't avoid the goofiness, the dogmatism and the slightly disturbing depictions of theological complexity.  You can never leave one of these films without being embarrassed by the casts' roles prior to portraying one of the biblical forefathers, or cringing as Jesus physically pulls his heart out to show his compassion.  If you're a Christian you leave these films hoping that no one associates your ultimate beliefs with the schlock you've just witnessed.  If you're not a Christian, these films often serve to cement your ideas of why Christianity is strictly for losers.

The late twentieth century's answer to Christian crap was Joseph Campbell's answer -- we need new mythologies -- and Lucas, Disney and now Dreamworks are all too happy to oblige us with politically correct dogma translated to cinematic drivel for our enlightened inner child.  While Lucas offers a saccharine space version of Unitarianism and Disney pushes a viciously cynical palette of the prevailing enlightened wisdom, Spielberg seems stuck in expounding on why he feels so guilty, and how we should feel guilty with him.

The Game is better than that.  Written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris and directed by David Fincher, of the creepy-Catholic inspired Seven, The Game is an entirely orthodox vision of a man who is forced - by his own choices - to his own breaking point, which is the only point that will release him from the trap his life has become. Without the Christian jargon as its delimiters, The Game nevertheless powerfully portrays the entire human drama of sin, confession, penance, absolution, forgiveness, oh, and crucifixion and resurrection – all in just over two hours.  The Game is equal parts Adam, Cain, Abel, Jonah and Lazarus all rolled into one of the most taught psychological thrillers ever.  Some of the film's most beautiful moments are the deft touches that seem incidental at first blush, but nevertheless point to the underlying allegory:  first communion, a statuette of the Virgin Mary, a reference to the book of John, and not one, but two resurrection scenes unlike anything you've ever seen.

If only Walker Percy were still alive!  Writers Brancato and Ferris must be two of his biggest fans.  The author of The Moviegoer would recognize his ideas unmistakably by the film's exquisite rendering of a man so lost in the cosmos that he isn't even aware of his despair. The question that Walker Percy spent his entire life asking – How do you speak to a man sensibly about ultimate truth in a Christ-haunted and Christ-forgetting culture?  -- is not only truthfully but beautifully answered by The Game.  Nicholas Van Orton is the man who has everything, and thus values nothing.  As an insanely successful control-freak investment banker who disdains all those who should be closest to him, Van Orton is at once, as Percy puts it, "both the hero and asshole of the cosmos."  His wealth and power have sated him to the point of extreme boredom, and it is clear that all viable re-entry points have either already been attempted or are simply too base for a man of his stature.  What are the conditions under which such a man could actually see the Parthenon and not be bored, or in this case, the Golden Gate Bridge?  In Van Orton's case, it takes the work of Consumer Recreation Services, a gift that Van Orton receives from his younger brother for his 48^th birthday -- the age at which his father before him (like another father and son in another Percy novel) committed suicide. 

Van Orton is mildly amused by his brother's gift, and one day finds himself coincidentally in their new San Francisco office, so he decides to inquire.  Here he meets an administrator named Feingold who tempts him into trying the game with the same logic that Satan used on Eve:  first, admit that you're interested; it's a no-risk obligation.  Van Orton then fills out a questionnaire that sounds more like a confessional transcription than an application to a recreational service:  I sometimes hurt small animals,  I feel guilty when masturbating, etc.

But CRS might as well stand for Christian Redemption Services, because the company and its omniscient database immediately begins pursuing Van Orton like some deranged hound of heaven on steroids, backing him up against the wall of his greeds, gluttonies and lusts for what reason neither we nor Van Orton know.  Initially, Van Orton is intrigued by the attention; he smiles as he walks into the airport and realizes, with the shock of discovery, that every exchange, glance and action is imbued with tremendous potential significance.  He is returned to that state of innocent childhood belief that around each corner the scene has been constructed just prior to his arrival and will collapse just after his departure.  But he doesn't know how far it goes, where it starts and ends, and why.  Like life, he is only armed with the one clue that the purpose of the game is to discover the purpose of the game.

At this point, if you have not seen the movie, reading any further will ruin it for you.  So get ahold of a copy and experience the full drama of this magnificent film before we give away any of the surprises.  Then come back and continue reading to see if you agree with the rest of the Cleave analysis.