THE GOOD SON
A film review by John Walker
Copyright 1993 John Walker
In Brief: I think your response to THE GOOD SON will depend on your response to the question of evil. I found the film excellent--and disturbing. I was uncomfortable throughout. It focuses on one thing--evil--and tries to look at it on its own terms, barring any easy ways out.
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Most of our profs would have said that evil is *really* ignorance, or bad reasoning, or blindness, or unchecked emotionalism, or the result of a bad environment, a terrible childhood, some traumatic event, etc., etc., etc. If you think that, then THE GOOD SON might be a nice little thriller for you, but maybe a little too low-key, too bland. If, further, you think that it's preposterous that a *kid* could really be *evil*, then the film will be still harder to take.
But what if evil is a real moral stance, a live threat in human affairs? What if it is, or can be, a *decision*? What if it's something that can never be completely removed by education or compassion or prosperity, etc., etc., etc.? (Which is what some of our old-line Thomist and Calvinist profs warned us.) To the extent you think that--or at least can enter into the mindset--then THE GOOD SON will be a disturbing analysis of evil. Even if it shows its origin in the genre of the thriller, its main action will be a confrontation with genuine evil in an apparently cheerful, appealing kid.
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Uh, guess which side of the question I'm on? Guess which profs I sided with?
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You probably already know the story, but I'll give a quick sketch. Mark (Elija Wood) is a kid of around twelve; the movie begins with the death of his mother. Because his father has to be out of the country for two weeks, Mark will spend the time (the winter break) in Maine, with his Uncle (Wallace--Daniel Hugh Kelly), aunt (Susan--Wendy Crewson), and two cousins, the younger Connie (Quinn Culkin), and her brother Henry (Macaulay Culkin), who's Mark's age.
"Logically," the structure of the story is Mark's growing awareness of Henry's evil, and Mark's attempt to fight Henry and protect or warn the others. Dramatically, the story is of *our* looking at Henry--becoming aware of his intentions *before* Mark does. Henry's actions will start out as apparently just mischievous, increase in malice, and move to the film's climax.
Let it be noted that the photography is splendid. The film starts in the desert and moves to "Rock Harbor, Maine"--actually a composite of Cape Ann, Mass., and some Lake Superior. We see a picture-perfect New England seacoast winter--the church spires, the town, the sea, the woods, the works. And all of that beautifully bright, chilly world outside is a counterpoint to the darker and essentially colder world inside Henry.
But for those of you who want a nice, stereotypical thriller against that backdrop, well, sorry. Forget the body count. Forget the airborne body parts. Forget the gallons of blood. Forget the twisted, shrieking villain. You ain't gonna get 'em.
The film shows its heritage. There are contrivances; there are some stretchings of probability; but they strike me as kept to a minimum.
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Henry is *not* the newest Son of Satan. He's not a demented killing machine. His actions are not superhuman; they're the sort of things that are relatively within the talents of a bright, adept twelve-year-old. But a twelve-year-old who reached a *policy decision* some time ago: conscience, morality, other people's rights--such limits *aren't for him*.
One wonders whether the family library had copies of THE WILL TO POWER and BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL--although Henry states his point of view in language both simpler and more attractive than I at least *remember* Nietzsche using.
To Henry, the choice is clear--as he explains to Mark:
"I feel sorry for you, Mark. You just don't know
how to have fun."
"*What?*"
"It's because you're scared all the time. I know.
I used to be scared, too. That was before I found out."
"Found out *what*?"
"That once you realize you can do *anything*,
you're *free*. You can *fly*. Nobody can touch you.
Nobody. *Mark*--don't be afraid to fly."
Having just reported what I think is a great verbal summation of a point of view, I can't ignore the fact that Culkin's performance in that scene adds another element. He puts a slightly plaintive, pleading note into the last words. His performance opens the door to an inherent Nietzschean contradiction--that Henry is *lonely*, that he wants a *friend*, a partner--that he needs someone else, like himself, who is "free." (Lacking that, he needs an *adversary*.)
And throughout, Culkin is able to make Henry "real." Tolkien and Lewis, among others, have grappled with the problem of how a *writer* can make genuine evil be something more than a cardboard devil, all horns and snarling. Culkin, as an *actor*, strikes me as having done a remarkably good job of showing evil that's real.
Ordinarily, we'd expect to know how someone got this way. We'd expect something like a tortured past; that way, we'd have a certain sympathy for a villain when he showed us elements of the past. But the structure of THE GOOD SON leaves aside any "easy" explanation. (It doesn't absolutely preclude some such possibility, but it's only the barest possibility. See "Comment requiring a spoiler," at the very end.)
Culkin is operating within the strictures of a role that precludes using sympathy as a method of making the evil real. Instead, now he gives us a slightly plaintive note, now he shows the petulance of evil, and usually he projects a clear-eyed self control that shows that this is a decision he's reached, and he's following through on it. It's evil unalloyed by extenuating circumstances, but a nuanced evil--an emotionally layered evil.
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Having said all that, where does it leave poor Mark--Elija Wood?
In some respects, I'm afraid that Wood may have the hardest task in this film: It's tough having to hold your own on stage against Mephistopholes! The structure of the role requires Mark to wise up only after *we* have been clued in. It requires him to be suckered into unwise attacks against the bad guy. In most such tales, this sort of role would come off as that of a stooge, a patsy. (Yes, a "mark.")
But the age of the protagonists allows THE GOOD SON to transcend its genre. Mark is a *kid*! He behaves in a perfectly reasonable, mature way *for a kid*. When Henry is setting him up for a fall, it's not reasonable to expect a 12-year-old to think, "Hmm, I've read 'Sitting in the Catbird Seat'! I'd better approach this cautiously!"
Just as Henry's evil is within the scope of a kid's skills, so Mark's mistakes are within the scope of a kid's inexperience.
Wood's strength in this role is directness and straightforwardness. Where Henry is "in control," Mark is honest and open. Yes, he has a tendency to Wounded Innocence. And I think the director (Joseph Ruben) cultivates it too carefully: the turned-around cap helps frame the face into just a bit *too much* wide-eyed innocence. Wood can do the job without photographic underscoring.
Most of the things I remember about Wood's performance are where he just lays something on the line. In fact, two of his most effective lines are just two words each.
To Henry's plea not to be afraid to fly, he replies simply, "You're *sick*."
And if Culkin gets to state Nietzsche in the best way possible, Wood gets to pose the traditional question and reply. He asks the question of Dr. Davenport, a therapist he's been seeing.
"You're a doctor--you *know* things."
"Well, *some* things."
"What do you think? What makes people evil?"
"Evil's a word people use when they've given up
trying to understand someone. There's a reason for
everything, if we could just find it."
"What if there isn't a reason? What if something
just *is*?"
....
What if there was this boy--who did these
terrible things because he *liked* doin' them? Would
you say he was evil?"
"I don't believe in evil."
"You *should*."
Where Culkin's performance opened up a view to what it's like to *be* evil, Wood opens up a view to what it's like to *deal* with evil. He delivers the lines with a certain nervousness, but ultimately with a plain facing of facts: courage without bravado. He gives those last two words the simple finality they need--as well as a certain rueful humor.
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I've heard a number criticisms of THE GOOD SON. I'd like to consider the ones that I think carry weight.
1. That the adults were jerks: Culkin talks to them in a way that they should have recognized as obvious lying.
2. That Mark learns of Henry's evil too quickly. It would have been better if there had been more time, more development so that Mark would have been closer to being sucked in.
3. That it was immoral of Culkin to portray someone evil.
There have been other criticisms, of course, chief among them that THE GOOD SON is just not very thrilling. I'll note that in the continuity-checking, technicality-hunting atmosphere of the Net, *no one* has mentioned a couple of glitches that should certainly have leapt out at them--*unless* the story itself was holding their attention! (I only noticed them on a return trip.)
But perhaps Net people just haven't see it yet; so, back to the three criticisms.
1. Is Culkin obviously lying? I noticed something like this, too. Which seems odd--because for Culkin of all people it would have been almost effortless to turn on the innocence, the puzzlement. He could have said "Gee, Mark's behaving funny," and sound *really* worried. Instead, he's cool and collected. Part of this may be the thriller genre: don't confuse the audience by making the villain *too* effective.
But interestingly, we hardly ever see Henry interacting *as a kid* with adults. The closest is at the very end. (Yes, there's also a talk between Henry and Dr. Davenport, but we see only a fragment of it.)
In what we *see*, the adults are wrapped up in some problem, so Henry doesn't really need to put on his kid show. More importantly, *Mark* is almost always on the scene. And in that case, Henry's remarks are really addressed to *Mark*, not the adults.
Intellectually, I would have preferred a few flashes of Henry putting on "utter innocence," but I think it was a judgement shot whether to allow that.
(Noticing that Henry in some sense really speaks only to Mark most of the time, I also noticed that there aren't any walk-ons in THE GOOD SON. There are extras for a few scenes, and crowd voices, but none of the usual gas-station attendants or store clerks who have speaking roles. No neighbors, and *no other kids*. No one speaks except the family and Dr. Davenport. This is a strictly bounded universe.)
2. More development? Intellectually, this, too, would have been something attractive. But as I thought about it, it raised a lot of major problems. How would Henry tempt Mark if adults were around all the time? Even if it were an enormously subtle, drawn-out process, Mark would always be able to go them to express his concerns. For such a scenario, you need either *adult* protagonists or kids isolated from parents or similar figures. This would be a whole 'nuther picture, not just an improved, deepened version.
Keeping kids as protagonists, as the lone actors, my suspicion is that a film would have to be really towering in order to succeed. You'd be in the realm of almost pure myth. I can't really complain when people shy away from a heroic challenge. Even if it were genuinely great, I doubt that modern audiences could swallow it. I suspect that for many viewers accepting the reality of evil is a case of the willing suspension of disbelief. Doing the whole nine yards with kids would be too much.
3. Is it immoral? Well, first off, it *is* rated R. And the "violence and language" rationale is ridiculous. The violence is trivial compared to many other flicks; and the *one* four-letter word, while effective, could easily have been cut. It's almost as if it was thrown in to guarantee the R rating because the producers (Ruben, and Mary Anne Page) had decided that the film *deserved* it. And it does--not for the usual reasons, but simply because the theme of evil *is* mature. This is a picture *about* kids, not *for* them!
But the morality discussion comes down to a debate that nobody but those old-line Calvinists and Thomists really take seriously. *Should we do theater at all?* (Calvinists, no; Thomists, yes, but they recognize it as a real question.) Because if we do theater, then we can't avoid portraying evil. And to be effective, the portrayal must render evil attractive to some extent.
Ruben was reported as saying that he would not have done this film unless he could get Culkin. And I think he was probably right. Yes, lots of folks on the Net gag at the very thought of Saint Kevin of Winnetka. But he is one of the few actors who is appealing enough to most audience members that they would have to recognize (on some level) that evil, too, can be attractive. That *we* might find Henry's choice to be a possibility for *us*.
In a thriller, there's always the danger that such questions will be engaged for mere amusement. In the present day, it's most likely that people won't be able to take evil seriously. Pondering the idea of evil, I could go even further and wonder whether, for the producers and the screenwriter (Ian McEwan), the story was merely an empty intellectual exercise and profit opportunity. (Also, for Culkin, a tactically necessary attempt to break out of typecasting.)
Even conceding the worst, however, the work they created stands on its own.
Within a moral framework, it is a task of theater to deal with evil in such a way that we, the audience, can see that it *is* a temptation *and* that it's still *evil*.
Yes, many in the audience will miss the point because, at some level, they can't recognize the existence of evil. They'll hunt for something that fits within the tidier boundaries of psychoanalysis, say.
But for those who are willing to look at it, the film must let them see the attractiveness of evil and still be disturbed by it.
On that count, THE GOOD SON succeeded.
End of basic review--short spoiler follows.
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It was interesting to me that some people have tried to find reasons why Henry might have been *driven* into evil, rather than just having *chosen* it. The big question, of course, is whether he killed his little brother. Some have suggested that the trauma of the brother's *accidental* death was enough to push Henry over the edge. (But the effect could be the same even if Henry had killed him on an impulse. Overwhelmed by the act, the home-made Nietzscheanism would have been an after-the-fact rationalization.)
As regards the facts, Henry does not explicitly admit killing his brother. But why else would he be concerned that he would be "put away"? Leaving open a slight possibility of "trauma," all the evidence on screen still points to Henry's having killed his brother, and having *chosen* to do so.
As regards the motivation, when I hear people offering reasons, I don't think they've really confronted Mark's question:
'What if there *isn't* a reason? What if something
just *is*?"
John Walker, walkerj@digex.com
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