The objection has been made that in 2008’s Fireproof, rediscovering harmony in marriage requires salvific grace from Jesus Christ instead of just efforts to mend the marriage.  But the moviemakers were not going to leave firefighter Caleb (Kirk Cameron), a non-Christian, thinking he was a genuinely good man when, to use the Bible phrase, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.  Caleb needs to change his thinking, and does, while God does him the favor of using the love dare strategy to salvage the man’s marriage.

Fireproof is more interesting than good, but interesting it certainly is.  As surely as it engages us to see the unhappy decline of George Hurstwood in Dreiser’s Sister Carrie, it engages us to see the spiritual ascent of Caleb (it works both ways)—after watching the unhappy decline of his marriage.  The death of this marriage is hardly inevitable, though.  Obviously the Kendricks’s film can be considered a conservative, though not political, one.  It should never be considered a disreputable one.

Cover of Fireproof

This is the one that borrows the plot of An American Tragedy, the Theodore Dreiser novel.

George Eastman (Montgomery Clift, more interesting here than in I Confess), a poor man with rich relations, courts a blue-collar girl named Alice (Shelley Winters) and is desirous enough, early on, to kiss her relentlessly.  Before long, he gets her pregnant, but unexpectedly George meets and begins to love the beautiful socialite, Angela Vickers, acted by Elizabeth Taylor.  Since the love is reciprocated, George grows desperate to break away from Alice but cannot bring himself to fulfill his intention of murdering her.  As it happens, however, he is charged with the said offense and a trial gets underway.

Happily, A Place in the Sun (1951) is a powerful Hollywood film, though much of that power resides in the dark nature of the work.  It is as convincing about George’s increasing affliction as, say, the Chilean Gloria is about Gloria’s affliction.  Thus it is practically an uncommercial work, but not quite.  Directed by George Stevens, Place features many memorable touches, from George’s departure from Alice’s modest house as soon as night segues into dawn to Angela fainting in her bedroom after hearing of George’s arrest.  Then there’s the laid-back dude who, while standing in the woods, calmly but firmly informs George that he’s under arrest.  Somehow it’s an inspired moment.

Stevens is an Old Hollywood master, and such films as A Place in the Sun and Shane are proof of it.

Cover of A Place in the Sun

I haven’t seen any 2014 films released in the last several weeks of the year, so my best-of list might have to be added to.

Gloria, Gone Girl, Ida, Capt. America: The Winter Soldier, Blue Ruin, and God Help the Girl are the best of those I viewed.

Honorable mention goes to John Wick, Gimme Shelter, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Labor Day, Hercules, and—a guilty pleasure because I live in Tulsa—Home, James.  I gave some praise to Birdman and Heaven Is For Real, but don’t believe either one of them deserves honorable mention.

A terrific Swedish film adapted from a best-seller called Swedish Heroes was given the U.S. title of Expectations (1997), which is fitting because human expectations run rampant here.  Some are dashed, others are fulfilled.  One of them abides in an aging fellow who has wasted his life and concerns a beautiful female angel!

The film examines parent-child, husband-wife relationships, etc. with humor and charm and directorial skill from Daniel Bergman.  There is so much ultimate sanguinity, though, that Expectations is practically feel-good stuff, but that’s okay.  It’s not as though everything in the film is pleasant.  Swedish acting, by the way, is as estimable as it ever was.

Don Draper of Mad Men works on Madison Avenue (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Since there’s a dearth of serious, intelligent movies right now (a common event), I’ll cast an eye on the serious, intelligent TV series Mad Men.

There is nothing mad about these men of Madison Avenue:  they’re perfectly sane, and usually efficient.  But they can be self-defeating.  I’ve been re-watching the fourth season, in which Don Draper (Jon Hamm) loses to cancer the only friend who has ever truly known him and consequently feels defeated.  In following episodes, though, we see the proclivity to be self-defeating that in Draper we are used to seeing.

Probably Don wins our sympathy in this season more than in the first three, but it is unfortunate that his religion is Coming Out On Top.  This leads him to some puzzling behavior, as when he expresses a preference for charming Megan (Jessica Pare) over the woman with whom he is already in a relationship:  the affable, highly supportive Faye (Cara Buono).  Then again, Faye might deserve better than the two-timing Don, but what about Megan?  ‘Tis hard for a woman to come out on top when Draper strives to do so, for all the blessed privilege that comes her way.  (Ah, the unprecedented wealth of America!)  Mad Men looks at privilege warily.  After all, Don’s ex-wife Betty (January Jones) is very privileged, and she unjustly fires the black nanny and won’t even give her a good recommendation.

That’s almost mad!