Last night the wife and I watched Garden State with some friends. I was looking forward to the movie as a lot of friends and co-workers expressed to me their love of this movie and how they thought it was one of the better to best movies of the year last year. I must give it credit it had some good/interesting themes. The idea of going through life completely numb to it is not something incredibly foreign to me. Whereas Zach Braff's character was numbed by prescription drugs, I feel at times my life has been numbed by video games, television, and movies and like his character I feel like much of life has passed me by (Pretty much my Jr. High to Highschool life, I still remember college). I thought the movie had a good social critique of the prescription drug era we live in and how the zolofts and prozacs don't really make us happy or feel better. Rather these pills in one powerful stroke make us numb to pain, happiness, and joy. I've heard testimony from friends and what not that these pills didn't make them feel better but rather made them feel "blah." They didn't feel highs or lows, which life is about highs and lows. So in that aspect I thought the movie had a little common grace to it.
But put these common graces aside and this movie was filled with fowl language and a pretty graphic few minute sex scene that had me looking at my wife instead of at the TV. And I realize that Zach Braff is by all accounts not a believer, and that a movie that was more pure in its portrayal of his character's life should not be expected. But myself as a Christian I can't help wonder why I should subject myself to a movie that has so much filth for so little common grace, because in the end the grace was rather common and I am left with dialogue in my head that is improper by all acounts.
Everytime an "F-bomb" was dropped I cringed as it reached my ears. It is a word that is so crass and so negatively powerful that it hurts to hear it. It takes one of the greatest gifts God has given us and turns it both into an insult and an explitive. It degrades the sexual gift, a special bond that unites a man and woman in marriage, and makes it the most terrible word in the American vernacular.
What is possibly even more sad is how this word has slipped into my own vocabulary. I will admit that when I hit my head or drop a cinderblock on my foot the word comes to mind and sometimes to tongue. Not proud of the fact, and it usually frusterates me that I don't have better reigns on my tongue and keep those words from coming to mind and tongue. Working in the environment I do I have become increasingly more cogniscent of what I say and how I act. Everything I say and do is witness and testimony to God's relationship with me. If I say I really liked this movie or any other movie with objectionable/offensive material in it, what does this say to me as a believer? A fellow believer might realize I just liked it because it had an interesting story with neat themes. But a non-believer might be sent astray, might see this movie, see the sex scene and be cast into sexual sin. Or they might start using explitives in their daily vernacular in attempt to be cool and accepted. Or see the drug scene and fall back into a drug addiction they were close to beating. I think we too often don't realize what we do, say, or even recommend affects our Christian Witness. I don't think the believers take into account how fragile and important our witness is. I've seen great evangelistic opportunites/conversations gone astray with one misplaced joke. How an hour of witness and teaching can be cast asunder by crass joke.
Part of me knows what people will say, "Just focus on the common grace element" or "But there's so much good stuff in the movie ignore the bad stuff." But I kind of think of it as this way: the movie's common grace is like a hundred dollar bill stuck in a pile of manure. To get that money I have to literally dive into the poo and wallow in it to try to find that 100$. Then once and if I find that 100$ I will be soaked in manure and so iwll 100$ bill. The analogy is not that great, and is sort of borrowing from a Krabendam one, but I take a different stance on common grace. I don't think we can be these scientists that view movies and pefectly cut out the common grace of culture and leave the reminent trash behind. I think when we pull out common grace from movies, music, books, etc we're pulling out some good things but we're also pulling out a lot of trash and consuming both.
But anyway, I would not recommend this movie. I think the interesting ideas and "good" aspects of the movie can be found in better areas. The story is interesting but in the end I think you consume more trash than anything when viewing this movie. At least I don't want anyone to watch this movie on my account.