Amnesiacs Anonymous

Peter T. Chattaway | posted 7/01/1998

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Debating free will is not limited to the academy; it has been creeping into the popular consciousness for quite some time. For years, pundits in the homosexuality debate have bandied about the notion that a "gay gene" determines sexual behavior; in a notorious cover story in 1994, Time magazine suggested that adultery, too, was a matter of genetic programming. The April 1998 issue of Life magazine also taps into this field, boldly declaring on its cover that our life choices are mostly determined by our DNA. Rodney Brooks, a robot scientist interviewed in Errol Morris's fascinating and critically acclaimed documentary Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, goes even further, speculating that there may be nothing more to human intelligence than a network of neurophysiological feedback loops.

A striking example of this theme can be found in, of all things, Jerry Maguire, the Oscar-nominated feel-good movie of 1996. In the film, Tom Cruise plays a sports agent who experiences a sudden moral crisis. Leaving the exploitative talent agency behind him—a world as depersonalized and artificial, in some ways, as anything Dick or Proyas have imagined—he begins to build a new life for himself in which family and friends, people he must learn to see as his spiritual companions, matter more to him than dollars and cents.

But it is not at all obvious that Maguire will be successful in this; in a crucial scene, he all but admits to his wife (Renee Zellweger) that he cannot show her the love he knows she needs. "What do you want," he asks, "my soul or something? What if I'm not built that way?" She replies that she, too, is not "built" for a relationship like theirs. Their marriage seems doomed. The next time we see her, she is participating in a support group for divorced women, where one divorcee posits, "The neural pathways are set, and that's why it's hard for people to change. That's why behavior doesn't change, very often."

It is, of course, at this point that Maguire walks in the door and all is made right between himself and his wife. Whether this proverbial happy ending is convincing or not—whether it has the ring of truth or, as the more cynical among us might suggest, it merely demonstrates that, in Hollywood, narrative pathways are set—it does reflect the hope that we can be free of the elements that conspire to control us. It is, in short, a plea for grace.

Dark City, surprisingly, lacks this sort of hope. Although it extols the value of the human soul, the film ultimately exchanges the fatalism of genetics and psychology for a fatalism of the spirit. Fearful that he might, indeed, have killed the prostitute next to his bed, Murdoch meets another prostitute and follows her to her apartment. When he does not feel the urge to kill her, he decides that he is not, in fact, a murderer. Similarly, it is strongly suggested that his love for Emma, and hers for him, would have existed no matter what memories they may or may not have; their souls are simply, inevitably, drawn together.

Luckily for them, and for the audience, they do make a lovely couple. But the premise remains a sobering one, for it suggests, albeit with the best of intentions, that people are, deep down, incapable of change. There may be some truth to this—did not Paul admit, in Romans 7:14-20, that he was a slave to his fallen, sinful nature? But the hope we have in Christ is that God can, and will, rescue us from ourselves, however we happen to define that term.

Peter Chattaway writes about films for a variety of publications in Canada and the United States.

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