NELL

FOUR STARS – Uplifting

 

          Few films provide the opportunity to explore the human condition as well as Michael Apted’s “Nell.”   Placed within the beauty of the North Carolina woods, Nell (Jodi Foster) is the child of a raped woman who secretly rears her in the woods.  

            Whether from fear of the larger society or from a preference for a simpler way of life, the mother cloisters her daughter in the sanctuary of the woods.  This protective isolation is abruptly ended by the death of the mother.

            Originally a play by Mark Handley entitled “Idioglossia,”  the title describes both the individualistic language of Nell, as well as the person of Nell herself.   Reared in the woods as  a twin with a mother whose speech is impaired by a stroke, Nell created not only her own language, but her own wisdom, reality and compelling spirituality.

            Nell’s unique way of being becomes the catalyst to enable us to examine fundamental questions of human existence.  Two doctors, one a local country doctor played by Liam Neeson and the other a specialist in abnormal psychology played by Natasha Richardson, become our companions in that quest.

            Their journey begins when Neeson finds a note in the Bible of the dead mother saying that the one who finds the note is “a stranger sent by the Lord” to care for Nell.  This basic question of our purpose in life and whether we are responsible to God to care for others, even strangers, is answered by the cynical, ambitious professor who suggests that, “Everyone who cares for someone has an ulterior motive, even Mother Theresa.”  

            But Neeson finds a different answer.   As the film progresses, Neeson is compelled to love and care for Nell.  As he does so, he finds that the innocent love Nell offers him has powerful healing effects within his own life. 

            Getting in touch with his own loneliness and need for others, Neeson wonders aloud to Richardson whether a person can make it alone, or whether they just “go crazy.”  His question of whether humans have a fundamental need to love and be loved is answered powerfully in the affirmative.

            Nell had, in her grief and loneliness, created a comforting delusion of playing with her twin who had died.  When  Neeson and Richardson enter her world and begin to love her, their love enables her to let go of her delusion and face her sorrows and find comfort from both God and her new “loved ones.”  In a powerful, symbolic scene, Nell is able to “let go of” her sister as she “sees” her wading into the water and is gone.

            Similarly, Nell’s openness to love connects with and comforts a severely depressed woman as well as with Neeson and Richardson in their isolation and pain.   Although Nell had aluded their attempts to communicate with her, she bravely opened herself and her internal world to them because “they were the first ones to need her.”

            Neeson and Richardson find a similar courage when the innocent love of Nell, a love with no ulterior motives, enables them to let go of their own fears and delusions.  They risk love, even though Neeson had lived behind cynical walls due to a failed marriage and Richardson had built walls of protection due to her experience as the child of divorce.  In a scene of mutual caring for Nell, they use her language, and find themselves able to love each other as well.

            This central message of “Nell” is in agreement with the Biblical description of human life.  This longing to find someone with whom to share our love is at its core a spiritual longing.  It is a longing to “look into the eyes” of a loved one and share the deepest parts of ourselves.

            In a moving scene in which Nell is before the judge to decide her competency, she notes that people in modern life know “big things”, but never look into each others’ eyes.  She also notes that people in modern life “have big things” but we have a longing for silence. 

            This insight is the secondary issue within “Nell.”  Are our lives better with the technological advances of modern life, or would we be better off living in the woods?  Have we so isolated ourselves behind our “big knowledge” and “big things” that we’ve lost our true selves in the process?  Do we all long for silence?

            Silence has long been a spiritual discipline.  The spiritual retreat, the cloistured prayer, the meditation, the thoughtful quietness are all means to a deeper connection to God.   Foster, as she plays the character of Nell, does motions with her body which would be familiar to most Christians as an interpretive dance of worship.  Mimicking the wind in the trees, Nell is allowing herself to become one with creation and opening the door to the Creator as well.

            The use of silence and the use of symbolic movement, whether kneeling, dancing, or celebrative worship connect body and soul.  Does modern life disconnect us with our deeper selves?

            “Nell” speaks to the longings and fears of all of us.  We recommend that you see it and explore with Nell the possibilty that there may be a special language of love you too long to speak.  A language “idioglossia,”  unique,  to you and those you love.