Real Spirituality

[Spoiler alert]

The movie The Vow, starring Channing Tatum as Leo and Rachel McAdams as Paige, is a love story about a young couple whose world is rocked when Paige loses her memory in a car accident. She remembers nothing of her personal history—not her family, her upbringing, nor her deeply fulfilling marriage to Leo.

The two questions driving the plot are: will Paige re-gain her memory (she doesn’t) and will Leo remain true to his marriage vow (he does).

That the movie is popular should not surprise anyone. The book, based on a true story, was successful. And beautiful stars with a romantic plot in a movie free of foul language and violence make a good combination. What I found significant in the movie was the glimpse it gave into popular 20-something culture and that culture’s view of life and love.

Life for these characters is male-focused. That is, the film is literally focused on men.
All of the characters in the film are strikingly attractive, but the visual focus is on the men, Leo in particular. When the camera closes in on Paige, she is often looking confused, straining to remember who she is. When the camera closes in on Leo or nemesis Jeremy (Scott Speedman) the men looks confident and strong or else look longingly at Paige. Even Leo’s frustration-fueled tirade is more engaging than the confusion on Paige’s face.

The visual focus does move beyond the face, and again the focus is on the male. There is an underwear shot of Paige, but it is in half-light. It is also overwhelmed by the full-framed, back nude shot of Leo just before and the frontal, semi-nude shot of Leo just afterward.

The male focus may not be surprising if we consider that the target audience is women, the main consumer of romantic movies. But this is a modern film, where the women are independent and empowered, and the men are fine with that. Why does the film assume the quaint notion of a strong man protecting the woman-amnesiac in distress. As it turns out, young people living an antique ideal is not merely a romantic cliché, it is actually a bedrock conception of the film.

The life of Leo and Paige is a contrast of young and antique. They are both 20-somethings, and so are their friends. Conspicuously absent are older people. There are no bosses, since Leo is self-employed and Paige has her own art studio. There are no mentors. Leo is an orphan, and Paige’s parents seem nice only to be shown as the antithesis of Leo and Paige. The father is an adulterer and the mother an enabler; one breaks his vow and the other forgives the violation, much to Paige’s horror. The happiest times in Paige’s life are when she rejects her parents, both before and after losing her memory.

Age is positive in the film, but only in things, not people. Leo’s job, for example, is “old,” a recording studio that does acoustic work. The viability of such an antique line of work is questioned by Paige’s father, the old man in opposition to the old thing. The young people’s clothes are often retro, clearly modern but fashioned on older styles. The clothes are right at home in Leo and Paige’s apartment filled with antiques and reclaimed shelves. Only the coffee maker is modern!

The most startling youth/age contrast is seen at Leo and Paige’s wedding. The camera starts close on their faces as they say their vows (or, vow), circling the couple. As the camera pans out, we see the couple surrounded by their friends and realize the officiant is one of their friends, not a minister or judge. All the people in the wedding are the couple’s peers. As the camera continues to move out, we see the context more clearly. What looked like stained glass is actually a collection of paintings. They are being married in a museum, surrounded by old things, antiques. The party is actually driven out by the officials since they don’t apparently have permission to have the ceremony there. Young people, opposed to the older generation/establishment, are married surrounded by antiques. Such is the world of The Vow. Old things are good. Old people, not so much.

So what does this say about the 20-something culture? It shows that, like most generations before them, this generation lives in a world struggling to understand themselves and their place in the world.

What it also shows is that young people have remarkable resources, resources that allow them to abandon family, financial, and cultural ties in order to create their own peer-family, financial network, and culture.

What saddens me about the film is not anything Leo and Paige did, but what the adults in their lives did not do. There were apparently no adults who reached out to orphaned Leo, or who supported Paige in her rebellion against her father’s adultery. The couple surrounded themselves with old things, but not with nurturing relationships with older people.

Yet there is among the young people a longing for the antique idea of fidelity, keeping one’s vow forever. Too bad the film didn’t show examples of how such endurance plays out over time.

So there are messages here for our churches: First, look to those who are younger and build relationships with them. They will not come to you since their culture tells them you either don’t want to have a relationship with them or that you are not worthy of emulation.

Second, celebrate fidelity. Announce significant wedding anniversaries publicly. Why would “the vow” even make sense as a term outside a religious context? Isn’t the notion of vow-taking a theological one, after all?

There is also a message to younger Christians: You are not as free from the past as you imagine. Seek and nurture relationships with older people, not just older things. Church is a great place to find good people to get to know.

God continues to work among our young people in ways that are powerful and amazing. May those of us in older groups be a resource and an encouragement as they lead, love, and live and learn to reach out to generations coming behind them.