Last week I made a rare visit to the cinema, and was immediately reminded precisely why my trips are so few and far between. Although I had successfully evaded the Regal ‘First Look’ at sundry pieces of cinematic ordure sliding down the pipeline, no sooner was I sitting comfortably than I was subjected to one of the vilest obscenities I have ever beheld. I am referring, of course, to the trailer for the upcoming, inconceivably stomach-twirling romantic ‘comedy’ It’s Complicated [1], which stars Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep as an insufferably smug divorced couple who start having an affair with each other after they have both supposedly found new love with someone else.
Needless to say, the trailer was entirely chuckle-free. But that only scratches the surface of the horror I witnessed unfolding on the big screen. Indeed, many profound philosophical and even theological questions raced through my mind as I tried to come to grips with what I was seeing. EG-
How did this infinite chain of wrongness make it from concept to general release?
Why didn’t somebody stop them- a producer, an executive, an accountant, anyone?
Which lunatic thought that what the world wants to see is the reptilian Baldwin macking on the formerly serious actress Streep?
Since when was Alec Baldwin leading man material again?
Didn’t Diane Keaton make this film a few years ago?
Is this related to Denise Richards’ reality show?
How old is Meryl Streep anyway and is it true that she got her start in DW Griffiths’ Broken Blossoms [2]?
Ultimately however, as I writhed in agony in my seat, waiting for the ordeal to finish I found myself contemplating the greatest conundrum of all:
Why does God allow good people to suffer?
Not that I’m identifying myself as exceptionally good, you understand. Kindler, gentler people than me will be gulled into watching this atrocity and all they will get from it is lost money, wasted time and a lingering sense of violation, of filthy fingerprints on their souls that cannot be washed away. Perhaps they will be so traumatized that they shall recall the words of Job [3], that long-suffering servant of God when he cried aloud (in chapter 3, verse 2): ‘Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night wherein it was said: ‘A man-child is brought forth.’
Why, O Lord, why?
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Daniel Kalder [6]
Latest posts by Daniel Kalder (Posts [7])
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