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Fearless
begins with a bewildering opening sequence, as plane crash survivor
Max (a spot on Jeff Bridges) walks through the wreckage of a commercial
aircraft - which he was a passenger - scattered across a corn filed,
without a scratch on his body, a baby in his arms, and illumination
in his eyes.
Surviving the crash gives him a new lease on life: He will not succumb
to fear. He will not lie. He will not be compromised.
After a brief detour, he returns to his wife (Isabella Rossellini)
and their son (Spencer Vrooman). But he also returns to the unwanted
attention of the press, a slimy lawyer played convincingly by Tom
Hulce, and a psychiatrist (John Turturro) who tries to awaken Max
from the daze he is in. But Max cannot let go of the delusion that
he is invulnerable, alienating his family in the process.
Director Peter Weir presents Bridges' Max as something of an atheist
messiah figure, spitting in the face of God while claiming that
he is the light and the way.
The opposite is found in Rosie Perez's Carla, another crash survivor
distraught over the death of her baby who was in her arms as the
plane went down.
Perez is superb in her role as the overtly Catholic woman who is
filled with guilt and shame over her baby's death, which her callous
husband (Benicio Del Toro) tries to profit off by suing the airline
company for millions.
The core of the film rests in the relationship between these two
survivors, and how their differing life philosophies ask hard questions
about mortality and faith that most films usually portray through
clichés.
Weir is too astute a filmmaker to tread down that path, and is wise
enough not to provide easy answers because no matter what your faith
- or lack of - there isn't any.
However, a heart stirring conclusion does provide ample advice:
be happy you are alive.
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