The Quest for Redemption

Saw two new movies this past weekend – Sherrybaby via Netflix and The Children of Men at a Saturday matinee.

Sherrybaby stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as a woman who has just been released from prison, has kicked her heroin habit and wants to reunite with her daughter. Her brother and sister-in-law have been raising the girl and are not quite ready to just hand her over to Sherry. This is a really depressing movie. Sherry never hesitates to offer her body as payment for what she wants (e.g., she wants to get a job working with children, the placement officer needs a little encouragement) and she has trouble understanding why her sister-in-law might be attached to the little girl. We also learn about her troubled past (let me just say it involves a creepy, creepy daddy).

In the end, Sherry has some hard choices to make and she goes down the path toward several bad decisions. She steers back from the worst one, though, toward a better decision (no right and wrong in this one) and redeems herself pretty well, considering.

The Children of Men is based on PD James’ dystopian novel. Set in 2027, women across the world have lost the ability to have children. The youngest people alive are 18 years old. Most of the planet has been obliterated by nukes or has sunk into other unmentionable conditions. England is the last civilized place on the planet. Clive Owen plays an alcoholic bureaucrat waiting for the world to end. His ex-wife, leader of a radical activist group, contacts him out of the blue. He decides to help her and ends up in the fight of his life, in the fight of everyone’s life: bringing a young pregnant woman to safety.

Although he is not exactly enthusiastic at first, he is drawn deeper into the chaos, seems to suddenly not be drinking any more, and, with memories of his dead son firmly in mind, fiercely protects the young woman to the end. Another successful shot at redemption.

Maybe that’s all anyone ever wants.