THE BROTHERS McMULLEN

 

THREE STARS – Searching, Thoughtful

 

 

       When belief in God is only religious, it provides little moral guidance in our lives.  Rules and commandments, however accurate, are not enough to compel our making the difficult moral choice. Instead, what does compel us is the relationship we have both with God and with those we love.

       In one of the most natural discussions of moral choices on film today, THE BROTHERS McMULLEN explore this truth.  The film is the creation of novice film maker Edward Burns who also plays the part of the middle brother Barry.  Although the film is obviously not a Hollywood production, that fact is also its strength.

       Rather than portraying the moral struggles of our lives from the often spiritual void of Hollywood, this film is a striking portrayal of real life. The situations and discussions are so real that it has the feel of a heart to heart conversation rather than a script of a film.  But it is also the conversation of a badly damaged and dysfunctional family of three brothers who are attempting to find a moral and spiritual compass for their lives.

       The brokenness is obvious.  The three are sons of a “wife-beating, child abusing, alcoholic” father.   In one scene, Barry declares:  “I stopped by the cemetery today to see Dad, and I’m glad to report that he’s still dead.” But the damage of the father’s abuse is not the only cause of their brokenness.  Their mother never loved their father.

       Having become pregnant, she had married him 35 years before, but had never given him her love.  Instead, on the day of his funeral, she left her sons and returned to Ireland to be reunited with the love of her life.The effect of being a son in such a home was to develop into a man with an anxious and distorted view of male - female relationships. Raised also as Catholics, because of their mother’s religion, they have superimposed upon this distortion the moral laws of the church.

       But the morality is only legalistic. 

       Never having a role model who actually lived the joy of a moral life, all they are left with is the emptiness of religious legalism.  Each brother, in his own way struggles to find his way in this morass.  Jack (Jack Mulcahy) seemed at first to have found the most joy.  Displaying the personality traits of a responsible oldest child of a dysfunctional family, Jack is married and is living in the family home, taking care of his brothers.

       But Jack’s maturity is untested.  When faced with a temptress, Ann (Elizabeth McKay), who pursues and seduces him, he only too late realizes the price adultery exacts.  Patrick, (Mike McGlone) the youngest brother, is the most religious, and yet his religion is full of fear and obligation.

       Searching to reconcile his sexual desires with his religious laws, he seems to live a life more of guilt than joy.  Intuitively understanding that only true love can bring together his spiritual principles and his physical desires, he ends up being the spontaneous romantic of the three.

       But it is Barry in whom the damage is most pervasive.  A pessimist who distrusts women, he has never been in love.  In an extremely funny and cynical scene, he compares the relationship of a woman with a man as one in which the woman peels away the “all-important shield”  of the man as one would peel the skin of a banana.

       This truth, that he is a soft and vulnerable person behind the tough shield of his predatory sexuality, is a central message of the film.  Finding an equally elusive woman, Audrey (Maxine Bahns), who finally begins to trust and love him, he almost represses his own love for her out of fear. Instead, in a final moment of insight, he risks being hurt and races to find Audrey and receive her embrace.

       Though the film portrays more of the struggles than the solutions, it does so with such authenticity and humor that we see ourselves more clearly as well.

      

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