Reason #1 that I love my IPhone: it stops me from looking stupid in front of other people. Walking out of the movie theatre after thoroughly enjoying Our Idiot Brother, I was having a hard time trying to talk intelligently about the movie because I couldn't remember the name of Paul Rudd's character. You know, the one the movie revolves around. He's kind of a big deal.
Turns out, his name's Ned. You could have given me a thousand guesses, and it wouldn't have been enough. And this was in a movie I LIKED! Rudd rocked it, fun story, great acting all around. And I forgot his flipping name. Who does that?!
So thanks to IMDB and my AT&T data package, I can sneak my IPhone out in the car and find out who Rudd played before I have to say something like, "Yeah I LOVED when, uh, what's that guy's name again?" and I've intellectually soiled myself.
I'm a forgetful person in general: this morning I forgot my wallet at home, even though I distinctly remember patting my butt twice to make sure I had it. Apparently I'm just fondling my own rear for fun now. I think I know why I forgot Ned's name, though--I was distracted. Watching Our Idiot Brother was like randomly bumping into an old friend.** A friend whose name I definitely remember: Prince Mishkin. He's the protagonist in Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, and the more I watched Ned on screen, the more I was reminded of the Prince. I couldn't get the comparison out of my head--and I'm pretty sure that was the intention.
If you've never read The Idiot, don't feel bad. You're in the majority. It's a stellar read, though. Dostoyevsky creates characters as real and silly as they are intriguing. The plot revolves around a young man who's a sort of cultural anomaly. He's a perfect person, a man without guile, sin or fault. Dostoyevsky drops him in among a group of ordinary people who try first to understand him, then to manipulate him, and finally to corrupt him.
If you've seen Our Idiot Brother, you can probably see the resemblance. Ned's also a unique guy. It's not that he's perfect--at least, from our culture's standpoint. He smokes pot and dresses like a ten-year-old. Ned is pure, though: he does whatever he believes to be right, all the time. He says exactly what he means, and treats people the way he would like to be treated. Every time. He doesn't have a deceitful bone in his body, to a fault--he freely tells his parole officer that he's been doing drugs with the neighbor kid next door. He is the picture of childlike innocence, and he's Mr. Congeniality.
It's funny that in both the Prince and Ned, you have this idea of a transcendent morality, but without any reason for it. The people surrounding both of these characters think them mentally impaired (hence the titles), since not only do they function on a different wavelength, they don't really have a reason for it. Neither man can describe why they are the way they are; they simply live life, and leave it at that.
It's an intriguing concept--an innocent man living a pure life among regular, messed up people. It begs the question: will the world and its ugliness break these innocents? Or, will purity conquer?
***SPOILER ALERT*** I'm going to reference the endings of both The Idiot and Our Idiot Brother.
The two movies agree in that corruption trumps purity. Thankfully, though, Our Idiot Brother offers us a happier, more hopeful outlook than "everybody loses."
In the end, both the Prince and Ned reach their breaking point. The Prince's friend that he actually has a huge crush on is murdered by another of his friends. It's a crime he's seen coming but refused to believe possible. The novel concludes with him seriously sick, wasting away, overcome with grief. Dostoyevsky often questioned the rationale behind a godless, or Modern, morality--essentially an agreement to act in the "right way," i.e. whatever has been agreed upon to be in the best interests of society by society itself. The Idiot challenges a morality without strength, a morality not founded on conviction. Can that morality stand when the storms of life come? What is the rock to which the adherents of "morality for morality's sake" can cling?
But where The Idiot dead-ends on that question, Our Idiot Brother takes a turn. Ned, stressed beyond belief at the pettiness of his family and their unwillingness to act decently towards each other, flips out. And by flipping out, he raises his voice and drops a couple of F-bombs. For a normal person, not a huge deal. But Ned's sisters are taken aback; they've never seen him so upset.
Ned's breakdown/blowup shocks his family into seeing what their own lives have produced: they've broken the man who, in their own words, "loves unconditionally." They're inspired to change--to forgive each other, treat each other like family, and get over the squabbles they had been obsessing over.
I wonder if, had there been an epilogue to The Idiot, it would have turned out the same. Faced with pushing a truly innocent man past his breaking point, would the people around the Prince have regretted their actions? Would they have, in religious terms, repented?
Whoever sang that we "don't know what we've got 'til it's gone" got it right. Taking things for granted is human nature. But it's also within ourselves to start over, to rebuild, to learn. Even Dostoyevsky must admit that, even if his story doesn't--if he didn't believe that people can change, why write a book in the first place? Maybe Our Idiot Brother is the way The Idiot should have ended: yes, innocence without a solid foundation is doomed to be toppled by the weight of the corrupted world; in that breaking, though, a spark for change can ignite the lives of similarly broken people.
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**You know what's crazy? I actually did this a few months ago--bumped into an old friend. I was visiting my friend's church, and as it ended I walked out talking with my friend, oblivious to a bent-over pregnant lady directly in my path. I bumped her as I went past, enough to throw off her center of balance and mine. I turned to apologize, and found myself staring into a strikingly familiar face. The pregnant lady was Liz, a girl I spent a year with in Africa co-leading a team of missionaries. I hadn't seen her in years. Ridiculous.
Turns out, his name's Ned. You could have given me a thousand guesses, and it wouldn't have been enough. And this was in a movie I LIKED! Rudd rocked it, fun story, great acting all around. And I forgot his flipping name. Who does that?!
So thanks to IMDB and my AT&T data package, I can sneak my IPhone out in the car and find out who Rudd played before I have to say something like, "Yeah I LOVED when, uh, what's that guy's name again?" and I've intellectually soiled myself.
I'm a forgetful person in general: this morning I forgot my wallet at home, even though I distinctly remember patting my butt twice to make sure I had it. Apparently I'm just fondling my own rear for fun now. I think I know why I forgot Ned's name, though--I was distracted. Watching Our Idiot Brother was like randomly bumping into an old friend.** A friend whose name I definitely remember: Prince Mishkin. He's the protagonist in Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, and the more I watched Ned on screen, the more I was reminded of the Prince. I couldn't get the comparison out of my head--and I'm pretty sure that was the intention.
If you've never read The Idiot, don't feel bad. You're in the majority. It's a stellar read, though. Dostoyevsky creates characters as real and silly as they are intriguing. The plot revolves around a young man who's a sort of cultural anomaly. He's a perfect person, a man without guile, sin or fault. Dostoyevsky drops him in among a group of ordinary people who try first to understand him, then to manipulate him, and finally to corrupt him.
If you've seen Our Idiot Brother, you can probably see the resemblance. Ned's also a unique guy. It's not that he's perfect--at least, from our culture's standpoint. He smokes pot and dresses like a ten-year-old. Ned is pure, though: he does whatever he believes to be right, all the time. He says exactly what he means, and treats people the way he would like to be treated. Every time. He doesn't have a deceitful bone in his body, to a fault--he freely tells his parole officer that he's been doing drugs with the neighbor kid next door. He is the picture of childlike innocence, and he's Mr. Congeniality.
It's funny that in both the Prince and Ned, you have this idea of a transcendent morality, but without any reason for it. The people surrounding both of these characters think them mentally impaired (hence the titles), since not only do they function on a different wavelength, they don't really have a reason for it. Neither man can describe why they are the way they are; they simply live life, and leave it at that.
It's an intriguing concept--an innocent man living a pure life among regular, messed up people. It begs the question: will the world and its ugliness break these innocents? Or, will purity conquer?
***SPOILER ALERT*** I'm going to reference the endings of both The Idiot and Our Idiot Brother.The two movies agree in that corruption trumps purity. Thankfully, though, Our Idiot Brother offers us a happier, more hopeful outlook than "everybody loses."
In the end, both the Prince and Ned reach their breaking point. The Prince's friend that he actually has a huge crush on is murdered by another of his friends. It's a crime he's seen coming but refused to believe possible. The novel concludes with him seriously sick, wasting away, overcome with grief. Dostoyevsky often questioned the rationale behind a godless, or Modern, morality--essentially an agreement to act in the "right way," i.e. whatever has been agreed upon to be in the best interests of society by society itself. The Idiot challenges a morality without strength, a morality not founded on conviction. Can that morality stand when the storms of life come? What is the rock to which the adherents of "morality for morality's sake" can cling?
But where The Idiot dead-ends on that question, Our Idiot Brother takes a turn. Ned, stressed beyond belief at the pettiness of his family and their unwillingness to act decently towards each other, flips out. And by flipping out, he raises his voice and drops a couple of F-bombs. For a normal person, not a huge deal. But Ned's sisters are taken aback; they've never seen him so upset.
Ned's breakdown/blowup shocks his family into seeing what their own lives have produced: they've broken the man who, in their own words, "loves unconditionally." They're inspired to change--to forgive each other, treat each other like family, and get over the squabbles they had been obsessing over.
I wonder if, had there been an epilogue to The Idiot, it would have turned out the same. Faced with pushing a truly innocent man past his breaking point, would the people around the Prince have regretted their actions? Would they have, in religious terms, repented?
Whoever sang that we "don't know what we've got 'til it's gone" got it right. Taking things for granted is human nature. But it's also within ourselves to start over, to rebuild, to learn. Even Dostoyevsky must admit that, even if his story doesn't--if he didn't believe that people can change, why write a book in the first place? Maybe Our Idiot Brother is the way The Idiot should have ended: yes, innocence without a solid foundation is doomed to be toppled by the weight of the corrupted world; in that breaking, though, a spark for change can ignite the lives of similarly broken people.
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**You know what's crazy? I actually did this a few months ago--bumped into an old friend. I was visiting my friend's church, and as it ended I walked out talking with my friend, oblivious to a bent-over pregnant lady directly in my path. I bumped her as I went past, enough to throw off her center of balance and mine. I turned to apologize, and found myself staring into a strikingly familiar face. The pregnant lady was Liz, a girl I spent a year with in Africa co-leading a team of missionaries. I hadn't seen her in years. Ridiculous.
Interesting post, AA. It makes me want to watch the Idiot Brother movie, which I had immediately dismissed upon seeing the trailer. More depth to it than one would assume--like "Clueless" emulating Jane Austen's Emma? Ok, maybe neither have that much depth, but I like them. :)
ReplyDeleteI like your post very much, but I'm not sure you are right about the ending of The Idiot. Yes, Myshkin crashes and burns, but that does not necessarily prove the triumph of corruption over purity. Myshkin is a type of Christ figure. Like Christ, he is killed/overcome by the world. Death is a central aspect of Christ's impact, as Myshkin's breakdown (foreshadowed by his earlier sickness and each of his seizure episodes) is a central aspect of his impact on the world. He is Myshkin, in a sense, because of the great clarity and understanding that he receives during the moment before a seizure and during his long convalescence. Proximity to death brings clarity and truth. In the end of The Idiot, Myshkin is closer to the truth than he has ever been because he is nearing death. Corruption only wins if the Prince turns into a monster and throws off his morality.
ReplyDeleteLove your review... Watched it today and loved it....
ReplyDelete