The bitter and the sweet

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, October 13th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: we throw it back 30 years. 1993 is a memorable year for movies, thanks in part to blockbusters like Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List.

EICHER: But today we highlight three quieter movies that turn 30 this year. Here’s movie reviewer Max Belz.

MUSIC: [Remains of the Day title theme]

MAX BELZ: In 1993, audiences were treated to three literary adaptations—all rated PG.

The Remains of the Day is based on Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1989 novel of the same name. It stars Anthony Hopkins in the role of Stevens—the dutiful butler of an English manor in the 1920s and 30s.

His diligence in managing the house is impeccable.

STEVENS: I prefer to keep distractions to a minimum.

But his unwavering attention to his work keeps him from experiencing the beautiful and the weighty things of life. When his father dies early in the film, Stevens has no time for grief, turning back to his work without so much as batting an eye.

The arrival of new housekeeper Miss Kenton—played by Emma Thompson—highlights Stevens’s difficulty in considering a world outside of polishing door knobs and refilling crystal glasses.

KENTON: Would you call flowers a distraction then, Mr. Stevens?

STEVENS: I appreciate your kindness, Miss Kenton, but I prefer to keep things as they are.

Miss Kenton challenges him to feel, to grieve, and to rejoice at the things around him. Stevens’s master further tests his butler’s loyalty and discretion by cavorting with Nazis on the premises as Europe braces for war. Still, Stevens stands by.

BENN: In your opinion, what’s going on up there has moral stature, does it? Wish I could be so sure, but I’m not. I’ve heard some very fishy things, Mr. Stevens. Very fishy.

STEVENS: I hear nothing, Mr. Benn.

These cross-currents blow against his moral sensibilities. Stevens must face the truth about himself and his enclosed but stormy little world. All the while, love threatens to break through.

For our next movie, we head to 1870s New York in Martin Scorsese's lavish period piece: The Age of Innocence. It’s adapted from Edith Wharton's 1920 novel and stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Winona Ryder.

Once again, the arrival of a new person brings change to the stuffy drawing rooms of the aristocracy. As well as a moral conflict for the film’s main characters.

ARCHER: Yes, you have been away a long time.

COUNTESS: Centuries and centuries.

The stranger is Countess Olenska. She comes to New York to seek a divorce and hires Newland Archer as her lawyer. Despite his recent engagement, Archer falls helplessly in love with her. He’s drawn to her spirited ideas and flaunting of convention.

NARRATOR: But, in public, he upheld family and tradition. This was a world balanced so precariously that its harmony could be shattered by a whisper.

The sets are heavy with velvet drapes and spread with vast tables of food. And against this backdrop, a saga of desire and obligation, indiscretion and fidelity unfolds.

ARCHER: Just tell her I'm old-fashioned. That should be enough.

Archer is stifled by the social order. Will he follow the reckless path of desire or the quieter road of duty?

And we finish with Shadowlands, the well-known, true story of C.S. Lewis and Joy Davidman Gresham’s marriage. Anthony Hopkins plays a more debonair version of Lewis than he was in real-life, but Hopkins captures the Oxford don’s cheer and generosity.

LEWIS: Ah, she’s coming to England. She’s coming to Oxford. She wants to meet us. She does write poems.

Debra Winger plays Joy—an American woman who carries on a longtime correspondence with Lewis. When Joy arrives in England for a visit in 1952, she shakes up Lewis’s academic circle. She is a fast-talking divorcee, newly converted to Christianity. The two bond over deep ideas and literature, and they decide to marry in 1956 so Joy can obtain her citizenship.

LEWIS: I'm not what you call a public figure, Mrs. Gresham.

GRESHAM: Oh you’re not? I mean, you write all these books and you give all those talks and everything just so everybody will leave you alone?

LEWIS: We’ve only just met and already you see right through me.

What starts as a marriage of convenience leads to deeper love—a love soon tested by cancer and then death. All those essays Lewis had written about pain, suffering, and God’s goodness come into sharp relief as he faces the darkness in his own life. Shortly after her death, Lewis wrote A Grief Observed, baring his inner feelings about doubt and the meaning of pain.

LEWIS: Just because something hurts doesn’t make it more true or significant?

GRESHAM: No, I guess not.

LEWIS: I’m not saying pain is purposeless or even neutral but to find meaning in pain, there has to be something else.

Each of these stories portray people facing suffering in love, in war, in death. And as Christians we know that the testing of our faith produces endurance, character, and hope. I’m thankful for stories like these that describe the struggle, even as we long for the true, the good, and the beautiful.

MUSIC: [Age of Innocence title sequence]

I’m Max Belz.

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