Fearless, directed by Peter Weir, is a great movie about loss, grief, family, and fear. Jeff Bridges plays Max Klein, a plane crash survivor and good Samaritan. While the plane starts to fall, Max sees the light – literally and figuratively – and all fear he has felt in the past dissipates in an instant. He is extremely calm when we first see him leading a boy and others from the crash and out of a corn field. He is holding a baby and searching for its’ mother. As soon as he finds the mother and returns the child, he ventures out on his own.
Since all fear has left Max’s body, he feels like a ghost. He feels like he is untouchable; like nothing can harm him. He also has a bit of a God-complex and he thinks he can save others around him; that people will be safe with him around. Max spends a lot of time conquering his former fears while floating through life not making any sort of connection to anyone but a fellow crash survivor.
That crash survivor is Carla (Rosie Perez), a woman grappling with the loss of her baby in the crash. She held on to her baby close and tight during the crash, but it wasn’t enough as her baby couldn’t survive. Carla blames herself, she blames God and the only one that can get her to feel, that can reach her in any sort of meaningful way is Max. They form a strong bond right away and he plays God. He is the one that can save her. He is the one that can make her strong. He is the one that can rid her of her fear. Carla goes to church everyday, but it isn’t enough. She needs Max and Max needs Carla.
The movie follows Max through his relationships with his wife (Isabella Rossellini) and child, his best friend’s wife, his lawyer (Tom Hulce), and the shrink (John Turturro) that the airline has placed with him. No one has been able to touch Max emotionally after the crash. He believes it is the best thing that has happened to him; that he is invincible because of it.
It’s an interesting movie that brings up some interesting themes. Max has grappled with the idea of God in the past. When a tragedy befalls his family at the age of 13, Max wonders how a loving God could take away a wonderful family man so early. He struggles with the idea that God killed someone he was close to. Carla is dealing with the same thing as she believes God killed her baby. If He did not kill the baby, He certainly let it die. There is an interesting conversation between Max and Carla about the existence of God. Max dismisses the idea of God entirely. He believes that since God wouldn’t kill a baby there is no God. Carla never goes that far, but she does blame God and blame herself for her baby’s death. How does God allow premature death to happen? It’s a question I’ve heard many times – why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?
Max isn’t dealing with his grief surrounding the loss of lives around him on the plane – the loss of his best friend he was traveling with. He is extremely insular in his thinking after the crash. Even when he is helping a fellow crash survivor, he is doing it because of himself. He thinks he can save her. It is all about him and the absence of his own fear. When grief is not dealt with, unhealthy things start to emerge. Max’s relationship with his family withers away until there is nothing left but bare bones. Max isn’t afraid of the loss of these relationships. He is fearless, and because of that, he is losing everything that was important to him before the crash. He is losing his ability to connect and rely on others. He relies on himself so much because of his lack of fear, that no one matters anymore unless he can save them.
Peter Weir has made some very thought provoking movies – The Truman Show, Dead Poets Society, and Gallipoli are all great movies that make the audience think about deeper issues in their lives. He knows how portray complicated issues with ease and he does the same here with Fearless.
Grief and fear can go hand in hand. If they are not dealt with, they can tear a person up from the inside until only a shell of a man is left. That shell becomes a ghost and will float around never connected with another and never dealing with the things that matter most in this world: the love and loving of others in a deep and meaningful way.
