Waking the Dead

We soon see that perhaps things are not quite all fun and games for our young lovers. She, the idealist, lefter-than-left, wanna-be activist. He, the man in the uniform, who wants to be a politician.

The movie jumps us back and forth between their fairly rocky relationship of the early seventies, to Fielding’s life (now ten years after Sarah died) in the early eighties. We watch them fall in love. We watch them have great difficulty with their relationship. Then we watch Fielding as his eighties version tries to cope with his family and a stressful campaign for Congress, while suddenly being haunted by visions of Sarah. He thinks he sees her in a crowd. He hears her voice. He gets a phone call.

And that’s about all you need to know about the plot (even though I’m going to spoil it for you). We simply go back and forth, learning pieces of these lives. We witness the politically-pointed convictions these two people have, and we see how that plays havoc with their love affair. Or, perhaps more precisely, how they let it do so.

That is really the movie in a nutshell. Two youngish people whose lives are directed toward powerful goals and ideals. Two people whose ideas of what is right clash dramatically. Two people who are too strong-willed and filled with ‘cause’ to find a way toward a political middle-ground. They are also two people who ask themselves the time-honored question, "Is love enough?", and in the end get to find out (at least one of them does, possibly both, you be the judge) that it is a question they have answered poorly.

They are two people perhaps too young, and too focused, to be in a position to answer the question at all. So filled are they with their intended goals, and perhaps unable to comprehend their own love. A love, that they (each in their own way, and for their own reasons) perhaps see as that normal, everyday love. The love, that is so special and wonderful that half the marriages in America end in divorce.

Unfortunately, they cannot see their love as we do..., for what it is. Not until it is too late anyway.

They ask the question, "Is love enough?", and we see them asking it of themselves over and over. But, they are asking it from the point of view of the five year-old asking why the sky is blue, who gets his answer from a physicist. They don’t have the requisite experience with the concepts life is using to answer them.

Many critics (the best-known name in movie criticism among them) denounce this movie because it doesn’t decide. Is Fielding seeing Sarah, or is it all in his mind? Is he hallucinating? Is he going crazy? Or, is Sarah actually still alive? The movie, as I say, doesn’t commit. It doesn’t decide.

There are numerous ways of criticizing a movie that I can accept. Far too many to mention. I find it very difficult however, to take it seriously when anyone criticizes a movie based on what is actually the whole point of the thing. At least, not unless I’m given a reason that the movie’s entire purpose is one that is invalid. The movie doesn’t decide, because Fielding can’t decide, and it doesn’t need to decide. It isn’t supposed to decide. It’s the far lesser movie that would decide things at us.

Waking the Dead isn’t a romance. It isn’t a movie that tells the story of the love of these two people. It is a movie that is talking about love. In general.

At the end of the movie, Fielding ‘considers’. He now has his realization. A realization about life, that perhaps makes him now a ‘more real’ person, or maybe a ‘more person’ person. He has had his time in office. He did less good than he hoped, but more than he feared. He has realized his goal of being a politician. He has lived according to his ideals and convictions, and he did his job a little differently for having been exposed to Sarah. But, there is only one thing that was ever of any importance in his life. There is only one thing that is now of any importance in his life. He got to love her.

That he can now look out his window with a smiling calm, and face the lessons his life has given him is his decision. He decides it doesn’t matter. Were the visions of Sarah ‘real’? Was it all in my mind? Or, is what is in my mind, in fact, the most ‘real’? Indeed, is all this talk of Sarah as somehow ‘separate’ simply drawing a distinction where there is none. Maybe Sarah really was still alive, and came to visit me. Maybe I imagined it. But, maybe, just maybe, there is actually no difference.

"Is love enough?", he pointedly does not ask himself (and asks all the more by not asking). He smiles. He sighs. He feels the sun on his face. Ahh..., love is all there is.

Waking the Dead is an extremely intelligent look at something that isn’t terribly intelligent. It is a look at two intelligent idealists forced into a realm that doesn’t conform well to ideals. It is also a movie that gets better the more time that passes after it ends, and that’s why it’s brilliant.

There is a scene in Waking the Dead which is absolutely perfect.  That makes it a part of about ten scenes in the entire realm of film.  It is a short, direct scene in which Fielding arrives at a restaurant after winning his election. His family is there already waiting for him, and this is to be the celebration dinner. Fielding suddenly breaks down and begins, basically, not explaining that he thinks he might be going crazy. There are stunned looks all around the table, and at the end, Fielding is suddenly ‘all better’.  It is a scene almost realer than real, and half-way into his romp through insanity, you are half trying to decide how you are supposed to react to his saying all this. I mean literally, thinking of what you are supposed to say to him.

It reminded me (just by the way) of a scene in American Psycho which aimed at something like the same goal, but didn’t quite get there.

There is much more to it than just this scene. Crudup gives one of the best performances of the year.

If we work on the theory that Jennifer Connelly deserved to be recognized for A Beautiful Mind (and she was not bad there by any means), it is a peculiar theory indeed that also says she didn’t deserve to be recognized for her work here. She gives an excellent performance with only the most minor of snags in a few scenes.

Perhaps most importantly, the movie makes us yearn for a Best Couple award. Simply stated, the two of them together just deliver. They display the intelligence of the characters. They show us extreme idealists who are nevertheless real enough to, at times, be fun and alive. They are sharp, spirited, dignified (and yes, even somewhat saucy) characters that do not ask you to suspend disbelief, they defy disbelief.

As a couple, they simply spill over with what they cannot themselves see, and that is the toughest trick you'll ever see in acting.  They have a passion that tears your heart out, because you already know that wherever they’re going, it’s nowhere you want to be. You know, long before things really get ‘interesting’, that they are almost magically in love, and you know they don’t really realize it. You know that they don’t really know what they’re doing at all.

Waking the Dead is a movie that, like A Man and a Woman, you aren’t going to watch over and over (unless you are really weird), but is nevertheless not only a great movie, but one that you are ‘better’, or perhaps simply ‘more’, for having watched it.

There is a perfectly legitimate question that is often asked of me (and I often ask it of myself) regarding movies, and that question is, ‘What does the viewer ‘get’ out of it?’

There is a scene in  Grand Prix where someone ask James Garner’s amateur race-car driver character, in all seriousness, "What do you get if you win?" to which Garner’s character replies, as though confused by the question, "You get to win."

What do you get out of watching Waking the Dead?

You get to win.