Writer/director, author and famous atheist Matthew Chapman’s movie The Ledge is one of the many films here at Sundance that deals with issues of faith. In this case, the villian in the movie is the fundamentalist Christian Joe, a wooden, creepy man who can’t help himself but to pound his faith into his atheist neighbor, the good-looking Gavin. To get even, and because he thinks she’s hot, Gavin begins to woo Joe’s unhappy but beautiful wife Shayna.
It works. Gavin gets the girl. But Joe wants to get even. He warns Gavin that Jesus didn’t cast any stones because the woman didn’t sin anymore; i.e., if Gavin quits sinning, he can live. But inexplicably, this isn’t enough for Joe, so he decides to hold Shayna hostage at gunpoint unless Gavin jumps of the top of a tall building. He has until noon to decide.
If Higher Ground was admirable for its depth, honestly and poignancy about crisises of faith, The Ledge was absurd and clumsy in its exploration of “what do you love so much you would die for?” question that Joe keeps asking. The character of Joe was absolutely one of the worst portrayals of a Christian that The Burner has ever seen. Vindictive, judgmental, self-righteous and psychotic, Joe balanced these traits out with some semi-believable prayers for forgiveness or guidance. The same characteristics could be said for protagonist Gavin, except that it is clear that his motives are to be judged as more honorable and laudable as compared to the hypocritical Joe.
It falls flat. The dialogue is laughable, the story uneven and forced and hope that it becomes an “reverse Passion of the Christ” and angry response to fundamentalist Christianity’s crimes against the GLBT community (the stated goals of director Chapman) is as illogical and untenable a hope for a movie as TB can imagine.
What is most sad about the film however, is that the attitude and preponderance of anti-religious themes becomes the foundation and the icing for the story–and who wants cement icing? Chapman uses this film as a polemic against all that he personally detests. It kills the movie along with an interesting question: “What would you die for?”
TB hopes to share a post on Monday about what happened during the post-film discussion with Chapman–the end of which was the most poignant, beautiful, meaningful and memorable experience of the whole week. Stay tuned.
