This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
No Man Is an Island
Plot Overview
Revelers Mr. Horowitz
(Howard Hesseman) and his wife Mrs. Horowitz (Beth Grant)
named their baby Mary Magdalene Horowitz after the New
Testament character Mary Magdalene and with the Jewish
surname Horowitz, the mother being Catholic and the father Jewish.
She grew up not being part of either faith community, and her
innate intelligence made her unpopular with the slower
kids at school. The Girl Scouts kicked out the maladapted Jew girl
who then amused herself at home by reading physics books.
After puberty she discovered instant popularity with the boys by
emulating her biblical namesake of easy virtue Mary
Magdalene. When the boys got old enough to have real
girlfriends, though, their girls kept them in line, and then
they went on to have families. Mary amused herself at home
with chemistry experiments.
She got a job in the Arts &
Entertainment Department of the Sacramento Herald but
kept her nose in her work and was not invited to any collegial
gatherings. She found it necessary to temporarily bunk in her
parents' abode (“You can't hurry fumigation.”) The
paper's editor Soloman (Holmes Osborne) asked her one day,
“Mary, do you ever stop working long enough to, like, go out
… spend some time with friends?” She concedes,
“No,” then he asks, “Go on a date?” She
replies, “Oh, well, I have a date this evening, a blind
one.” Her parents set it up wanting her to be happy, and
under pressure she keeps it, likely the only bona fide one she's
ever been on. She clears it with her impassive pet rodent.
The date becomes awkward. Then her
escort, TV news cameraman Steve (Bradley Cooper) is saved by
a phone call from work asking him to go on the road for a story. He
tells her he'd like her to come along but her occupation, of
course, comes first. Actually, she can send in her material from
anywhere, but it becomes a moot point for her being fired over
obsessing all about Steve in her latest submission. She follows him
on the road not realizing she'd been brushed off. During the trip
she makes friends, expands her horizons, and receives an apology
from Steve (“I never should have said anything to you I
didn't mean.”)
Ideology
The film
opens with fingers selecting pencils from a holder to scrawl words
on paper. The camera pans down to red gogo boots, following them
down sidewalk & flagstones to the Sacramento
Herald where she delivers her copy. Cut to Mary in same
business attire sitting on a bench next to a geared-up
fireman, waiting their turns on Career Day at Youngstrum
School. Mary gives her presentation to an academy class all dressed
in school uniforms. Then she goes home to get ready for her (blind)
date, to make a grand entrance down a switchback staircase.
Attire has monopolized the big screen. Mary's long dark skirt comes down below her knees exposing barely an inch of skin before the boots take over. Her blouse is decorated with abstract pseudo-letters that obscure the lines of her female bosom. It's all buttoned up to the top with a narrow white scarf sporting a cute little bow just below her chin. Her sleeves end in white fluffy cuffs. Her hair consists of bangs and shoulder-length hair on the sides with a natural curve, and in the back it's down her shoulder blades. For her date she merely changes her blouse to another of similar design. At most she will wear a single strand of beads.
The apostle Paul enjoins (1Tim. 2:9) “that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array.” “Shamefacedness” has to do with being easily embarrassed. The relevant note in my Franklin Electronic Bible reads, “Early printer's error for ‘shamefastness’, which means modesty of character.” The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible restores the original ‘shamefastness’, and the ASV retains it, too. This is Mary all over. Being a crossword constructor she has an awesome vocabulary that includes words you or I might have to look up. We could, however, find shamefastness from her clues. She is modest enough to go on a “normal” date.
That changes when she meets Steve. He's hot (“muy caliente.”) Mary
dashes upstairs to put on something more appropriate, along
the lines mentioned in a Harlan Coben novel: “She was dressed
in Seventies American Hooker—fishnet stockings, high
boots (those two looks seemed to be a contradiction), a skirt
that covered up about as much of her as, say, a belt would, and a
purple top so tight it could have been sausage casing” (34).
She did not have the fishnet stockings, though, so the boots
in themselves were modest, but she wore a miniskirt, and
her top was overflowing. She was in a word moderately
modest as updated by the NKJV specializing in removing the thee's &
thou's (“Jesus said, ‘Seek and ye you
shall find.’”) The modernized New King James Version
(NKJV) opts for a
simplified vocabulary, (1 Tim. 2:9) “that women adorn
themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and
moderation.” The moderation is the difference between upper
and lower body. The propriety is fastening her seat belt, which she
had trouble getting out of.
Scholar Joshua Whatmough writes that, “Within the territory of a language, wide deviations of dialect may be found … Such deviations disturb communications, they do not completely disrupt it. And they are, in all known languages, past and present, a constant feature, like archaisms (e.g. in religious or legal terminology) …” (51, 28). The Bible translators should have left well enough alone.
Production Values
“” (2009) was directed by Phil Traill. It was written by Kim Barker. It stars Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper and Thomas Haden Church. Also featured are Keith David as Corbitt and M.C. Gainey as Norm the Truck Driver. Bullock won the Golden Raspberry (“Razzie”) Award for Worst Actress for this film, and appeared in person to claim her prize, becoming only the second actress ever to do so. The judges likely didn't understand the movie; I think she owned the role. It was the actors' skills that elevated the film beyond its offbeat script and uncertain direction.
MPA rated it PG–13 for sexual content including innuendos. I enjoyed this movie immensely. Other actresses could learn a thing or two from Sandra Bullock. M.C. Gainey quit himself well as Norm, a nerd type role he's good at. Keith David played Steve's (and Hartman's) boss Corbitt, and when he was mad at him (them)—which was pretty much all the time,—I was just glad he wasn't mad at me, so realistic did he seem. The plot was funny in a refreshing kind of way. The couple's issues gave one something to think about without overplaying their hand. I do have a couple reservations in recommending it, however.
Steve the stalked seemed rather pathetic as a man, switching roles with the stalker who is supposed to be the pathetic one. Mary for all her brain power—“She's just a smart girl with red boots”—seemed not handicapped by it at all, using a lot of big words in a novel way, which nevertheless works. To her, crosswording is tops, “the most fun a person can have without passing out.” I appreciated the story line, but I'm afraid a lot of people are not going to want to hear Jesus's words used in a farce however tangentially.
If that weren't bad enough, the yellow journalism (“keeping a nose in the news”) in the movie necessarily follows people's troubles and foibles, because that is what makes news. Here it makes comedy as well, and some people are not going to laugh at the misfortunes of others. I think “All About Steve” was in better taste than the fare of, say, Woody Allen or Monty Python, but still——
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
The negative reviews stemmed from the critics not understanding Mary's history that is at best just hinted at. For those paying serious attention to the movies however silly they seem, their focus will be rewarded.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Decent action scenes. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years with guidance. Special effects: Average special effects. Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Unless otherwise indicated, scripture quotations are taken from the Authorized King James Version (KJV.) Pub. 1611. Rev. 1769, 1873. Software.
Scripture quotation marked NKJV is from the New King James Version, Copyright © 1979 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Print.
Coben, Harlan. Home. Copyright © 2016 by Harlan Coben. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2016. Print.
Franklin note is from “The Bible Word Book,” R. Bridges and L. Weigle, Thomas Nelson 1960.
Whatmough, Joshua. Language A Modern Synthesis. New York: Mentor Books, 1957. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org