“Sinners”–Directed by Ryan Coogler–starring Michael B Jordan and a lot of people I don’t know–just released

“The Hunt” by Faye Kellerman–copyright 2022–Harper Collins

I hardly know how to start this article. Maybe I’ll be better at ending it–maybe not. Maybe I’ll just make a fool of myself and display some of the issues that go with getting older. Maybe not–I guess we’ll see, or at least get to guess.

I heard about “Sinners” from several sources and I decided I wanted to see it. I’d never seen a Coogler or a Michael B Jordan movie before as far as I know, but it sounded interesting– a tale about black and white vampires in depression era Mississippi with a lot of good music(though I can’t remember for sure how much I heard about the music before I went and saw it). As a sometime fan of vampire movies and a frequent admirer of over-the-top stuff, it sounded at least interesting. Although I likely would have gone to see it anyway, the final decision was made by what I heard from Alyssa Farah Griffin.

For the uninitiated, Farah Griffin is the striking, long haired brunette who once worked(briefly)for Mike Pence and now is a frequent interviewee and political commentator on some of CNN’s many talk shows. Brought up with a
Republican and apparently very nearly extremist far right background, she seems to have had her eyes opened by her work experience. She now sounds like a skeptical, careful, moderate liberal, though this is my own interpretation only. Anyway, I have come to appreciate her intelligence and her calm, sophisticated and good natured articulation. Therefore, when on the (supposedly)half-minute per person comments at the end of one show, she said she had loved “Sinners” and she strongly recommended it, I took note.

She has plenty of company. I checked Rotten Tomatoes and found it had an astounding positive 97% from the critics and 96% from the public. So the “liberal” movie site was strongly for it. “Worth It or Woke” was more divided and had at least one definite negative review but still it was split, and it is a conservative, though witty and aesthetically astute, site.

Manohla Dargis of the NYT(with whom I have agreed and disagreed on the same movie before)was close to ecstatic about it. –“A passionate, effusive praise song about life and love,” she said; she added “when a Black musician plays the blues at a juke joint, he isn’t performing for jubilant men and women. He is also singing to the history that flows through them from generations of ancestors to others not yet born.”

Now the trouble here is that just about everything she praises the movie for is correct. It does have good things in it and in a way(if you overlook a couple of thing’s I’ll try to get to)it’s well done. The music is very good. Coogler knows what he’s doing. What he may not know is what he is or is not valuing and herein lies the problem. It may be interesting to learn who agrees with me and why. By the way, it could also be mainly that he and I simply have extremely different values and they just don’t fit together.

I noticed when I was young that there seemed to be a tendency for older people to shy away from anything aesthetic–music, movies, etc–that had any aspect of the bizarre or unpleasant about it. I assumed when I was 22 that this was just because the were older. It hadn’t yet occurred to me that they were not only calendar-wise older, but that they had passed through different economic, political and social times than people of my age and that this might be an important factor too. I was fairly contemptuous of their attitude and to the extent that real contempt is ever an acceptable attitude towards others, I must say I still think I had a pretty good case.

But time passes and stuff changes and there are nuances. And now I find myself in the embarrassing position of having to justify myself to myself–and to you, given all those good reviews and opinions of “Sinners.” So here goes.

In the “yes” or “no” game on this movie you may put me down as a “no” and a pretty strong one. But wait and hear my reasoning, my comparisons and my exceptions. So far as I know, none of the critics have pointed this out, but “Poor Things,”(2 years ago), “The Substance,”(last year) and this film are in a sense three of a kind. You could put them together in a category I would describe as “having contempt for the human body.” And I would argue that this ultimately means contempt for human beings altogether if you follow it far enough. And I think that is a spiritual, intellectual and artistic dead end.

“Poor Things” was a very successful film, making money and winning a slew of awards. Emma Stone parlayed her role into a best acting Oscar. For a fuller description of my feelings about this movie, see my article on the 2023 Oscars done early last year. (It’s the last entry in the movie part of my book –see below). I admired much of the technical aspect of the movie and even credited it with what appeared to be a bit of raising of imaginative questions on maybe two occasions, neither one taken advantage of.

But I largely despised it for what seemed to be its casual acceptance of sexual excess and, even more, for its contempt for the human body and its celebration of violence toward it. This latter is shown in many scenes in which a mad doctor is apparently(never explained)doing experiments. There is blood all over the place and no point to it. I felt sickened by seeing this over and over, something apparently I was supposed to be well impressed with it. Well, I was impressed, but …not in that direction. I wondered what kind of morality, what kind of world view or aesthetic sense would make a person go for this, think it was admirable and expect people to be attracted by it.

What the answer to that question is I still don’t know, but clearly much of the audience disagreed with me. It was, as noted, a winner of many awards including the one for Emma. It just left me wondering what’s going on out there that I don’t understand, something that disgusts me with its contempt for the bodies we live in and its willingness to exploit gross attacks on them; and also apparently accepting destruction of them for the sake of ,well, I guess the term “cheap thrills” applies here.

About a year later along came “The Substance,” starring Demi Moore who failed to win an Oscar for it but did get nominated for best actress. The plot involves an aging actress offered the opportunity to have her body reborn in the form of her younger self. Her own body(original one)then goes to sleep and her consciousness is transferred to the new one. The transformation and changing of body parts are portrayed in gross and extreme detail. If such a thing actually were possible, maybe this is what it would look like. Maybe not, too-who would know?

As you may have already guessed this gets spectacularly screwed up and at one point she seems to, mentally occupy two bodies at one time. But as ridiculous as this may sound, by far the worst part is the body changing stuff and the director’s willingness to let the camera and the mic hover over it while it goes on. The audience gets to be a different kind of voyeur watching a different kind of pornography, a pornography of the body and soul or body and consciousness combined. And there is a lot of noise and screaming and grossness involved and I couldn’t help thinking at some point or other of “Poor Thngs.”

I remember, that, ironically, this seemed like PT as described above, but at first appeared, in its concentration of the Demi Moore character to have at least some internal integrity and to be granting some to its characters. Big mistake. As the changing and the noise and the grossness piled up it got worse and worse and I wound up thinking that this film had accomplished the oddly considerable feat of being more offensive than “Things.” And the offensiveness comes mainly from the ghastly and repeated scenes of body changing which manage to be horrible and boring at the same time.

Then we have “Sinners,” already largely described. Like PT it is a movie made by someone who knows about movies and there are technically some things to admire in it. The story-telling is a bit haphazard, but not over-the-top ludicrous or incompetent. And of course, as I have already said, the music is wonderful(at least if you like blues-gospel-folk)to hear.

But after the serious violence begins(there’s a bit from early on in the film)it descends into a nightmare of physical cruelty. Knifing, shootings and just plain beatings take place. As with the two above movies this is the constant theme of the last half hour or so and it hardly matters who is doing what to whom or why they’re doing it. It’s just a trip into violence for violence’s sake and the film’s possibly redeeming qualities are pulled down into a black hole of disgust with the violence.

I assure you that I am not suggesting any kind of censorship–freedom is freedom. But I am asking why this kind of thing is apparently now acceptable(and apparently desirable to some) on the screen and drawing enthusiasm from both critics and the public. I understand this is in a sense more a sociological than an aesthetic question, but I think it’s one to be asked. If anyone has an answer–well, I’m willing to wait patiently.

Now, I get to turn from complaining about the seemingly depressing way our society, or at least its expression through aesthetic means is going, to complaining about people who apparently won’t deal with change at all. I don’t know how many mystery novels I’ve read by The Kellermans(Johnathon and Faye)but I suppose about 15–maybe more, maybe less, and over a long stretch of time. All but one have been by Faye. I did try Johnathon once and I found him an acceptably entertaining and clever mystery writer, but his wife is–well, much better, to be frank.

Most of Faye’s novels, over 20 of them I believe, are about Rina and Stephen Decker. They meet in the first book, or at least an early one, and quickly fall in love when Peter is not busy solving crimes. He’s a cop and having a romance with an observant Jew when he is a fallen away Mississippi Baptist trying to catch a killer is a tough business. But they both know they’ve found the right person and go from there, and they get a great deal of help when the truth of Peter’s birth finally emerges. His mother was Jewish, a fact he did not have before, which makes him a birth right Jew and–well, I’ll bet you can take it from there.

Peter and Rina are one of the most attractive, inspiring, and lovable couples in mystery writing. While he is usually busy investigating horrible crimes(sometimes with help from Rina), they build a life and a family together and (aside from the husband and father’s occupation) they are an ordinary or better than ordinary upper middle class family, the kind you’d like to have your kids play with and have over for dinner and bridge. But they do have some unusual connections and one of these leads to their being the foster parents of Gabe, a leading character in this book.

Gabe is the biological son of a gangster named Donatti and Teresa McLaughlin. Dr. McLaughlin–she was once apparently good practitioner of medicine–is a friend of Peter and Rina and they took Gabe as their foster child during a rough time for his mother. He has formed close relationships with Rina’s and Peter’s children as if they were true siblings and he loves Rina and Peter. But he also loves his mother and wishes to help her when she’s in trouble.

Meanwhile, Peter is nearing retirement and working for a small police department in upstate NY. Three people, a man and two women who seem to have had a complicated relationship, are missing and it’s up to Peter and his partner, Tyler McAdams, a rising young cop, to sort. out the mess. The story of these three is in some ways a routine mystery plot, but interesting for all that as are several of the other characters the readers(and Peter and Tyler)meet along the way. It is, however, only about one third of the book. The rest is the story of Teresa, her own children, and her two husbands, current and ex.

One thing that is really different about this novel is that Teresa tells most of her part of the story(as opposed to Peter’s hunt)in the first person and it is very self revealing. A smart girl with big ambitions, she was nonetheless less victimized as a teenager by a boy named Donatti who was on the way to the top–in crime. He seduced her into sex and pregnancy and their son is Gabe. He also paid for her education until she became a doctor, able to earn her own living. He is also a killer and a psychopath, though one who can play the game in society and manages to pass himself off with many as a very wealthy NV businessman and investor.

Their relationship is described by Teresa in great detail, both physically and emotionally. It is both loving and abusive. He is sex addicted and insists on it almost constantly and is not above raping her on occasion. She hates this, but finds him exciting and attractive at times. And he has a small sliver of humanity in him–he can be kind and understanding sometimes and they have known their moments of happiness.

But at one of the not good times in the marriage Teresa got a divorce and wound up marrying an Indian doctor, Revel. He is talented and quite rich(though not to match Donatti’s wealth)and also a bit of a jerk and a man with troubles. He is a compulsive gambler who has gotten himself deeply in debt to people of Donatti’s type. He and Teresa have two children and she has taken the kids and fled India for NV and is in the process of divorcing Dev. Then one of her children is kidnapped, the other threatened and she herself is badly beaten, presumably by people connected to Dev.

This is about where we meet Teresa and she tells her story, the past and the part she is going through in the story. Donatti is back in her life again and as usual immensely generous with money–but still psychopathic and violent–and, confoundingly, still generous and loving at times–and as big a puzzle as ever. And where is this all going?

Well, I can’t reveal much about the rest of the story without betraying my honor as a reviewer of mystery writing. But I can tell you that this is the point where we begin to get very heavy doses of the private life of the recovering Teresa and the psychotic/violent/obsessive/jealous,/charming and occasionally loving ex-husband she divorced earlier and who now wants to marry her again.

Teresa’s feelings for him are, I think, as well delineated as they could be. I doubt if any truly sane person can really get all the way into the mind of a psychopath, but Kellerman does a pretty good job here of making him believable– believable and very, very seldom, sympathetic. But there does appear to be a very screwed up and reprehensible person hidden down there somewhere in his psyche.

We get some idea of something many of us have wondered. Why will a wife stay with an abusive husband?(Or, occasionally the other way around). There is no up front, “ah, here’s the answer” in this narrative, but there is this–Kellerman digs so deeply into Teresa’s mind and spirit, digs up her most intimate feelings, sexual, religious, whatever, that we can feel the process of loving and hating at the same time, of feeling desire and attraction for one who has beaten you and worse. Please note I am not admiring this kind of relationship, merely saying that it exists and that Faye Kellerman has done a very believable job of describing the whole thing. Whether it is accurate in real life I don’t know but she makes it plausible.

This relationship, particularly the sometimes violently sexual part of it, is what put off a lot of readers. If you look this up on the internet you will find that although quite a few people liked the book, there were many, many who criticized it and some who hated it. And of course, if you compare it to the relative comfort of the warm and loving family of the Deckers from the previous novels, the contrast is striking. It is indeed a relief to leave Teresa’s story behind and get back to Peter and Rina as Peter and his partner track down the answers in another odd case, but one that is more puzzling than degrading.

And this is where I part ways with the people who strongly criticized the book and who more or less attacked Faye Kellerman for writing it. I don’t know where she got here information–if she read abnormal psychology or talked to experts in the field or relied on her own observation–maybe she did all of them. But she created a strangely fascinating work and with her gift for telling a story in an irresistible way, she wrote a book that pulled me in and wouldn’t let go.

So I guess I am going to end this thing going the opposite direction that I did on “Sinners” and its predecessors. I fully grant the people who didn’t like this book their right to be put off by it. I even understand, I think, even though I don’t agree. It is a departure from her earlier books and those of us who love her writing hope her “retirement” will not be permanent and that that she will return with other stories about other people(or maybe even the Deckers?)

But in the meantime, let me say again, I suggest you try to separate your love for her earlier books or your love for the way of life portrayed in them from your feelings about “The Hunt; give the author room to wander into some new territory here. Many of the people in it are despicable, some to the extent that they seem hardly human. But in most of the characters, and behind the whole thing there IS a feeling of humanity, though not always the normal brand. But it is there, hiding somewhere, but affecting the world overall. To that extent this book and its people, therefore, are way beyond the insane and often over pessimistic drivel of “Poor Things,” “The Substance” and “Sinners.”

PS_Regarding my mention of “my book”–I have(self)published a collection of most(more than 90%)of my blogs from March, 2022 to about early May, 2024. If you’ve read my stuff from the beginning they should all be familiar to you, but somewhat enhanced by fancy(and expensive)publishing techniques. It is not yet available in stores or on-line but I hope it will be soon. If you just can’t wait email me a jnjcfloh@webtv.net to get a copy quickly.