If the Obamacare website rollout
wasn’t such a fiasco, it’s likely we would all be talking about immigration
reform once again. This topic has been
on the agenda of democrats and republicans alike for years, and before the
current circus surrounding healthcare.gov, it was slated to be the next issue
of import in the House of Representatives.
I was already gearing up for all the name calling and deliberate
misrepresentations. But we have a slight
reprieve while the dismal failure of government-run health care is mocked,
scrutinized, investigated, and hopefully modified.
As a result, one recently
released movie has been all but ignored.
Let me preface this review with the explanation that when my wife is out
of town I often run to the movie theater to see films that I am pretty sure she
would not enjoy as much as I would.
Therefore, while she was off in Albania frolicking with grandchildren, I
sat down in a seat reserved for those with wheelchair patrons in the back of
the auditorium with a large popcorn in one hand and a medium diet soda in the other. Before you gasp in indignation and unbelief, I can assure
you I was ready to give up my seat to anyone who actually needed it, but in a
small town theater at an afternoon showing, I was just one of six people vying for
the best seats in the house (I also use the handicapped urinals if there is no
wheelchair in sight).
The movie I had chosen was
Elysium. I can’t remember when I have
seen a movie that needed so little explanation concerning the message embedded in
the storyline. Let me just explain the
basics of the plot without giving away the ending and see if you can figure out
what the “hidden” meaning of the writers is.
Brad Pitt lives in a futuristic Los Angeles, California. The entire planet is polluted, practically
barren, and overpopulated by rough people trying to scrape together enough of
life’s necessities to see one more dismal day on earth, but having difficulty because jobs are scarce. The opening scenes need subtitles, as the
protagonist and others are speaking Spanish.
The subtitles soon disappear as everyone begins speaking English. We quickly discover everyone’s dream is to
travel to Elysium (Greek: blissful place), a huge space station with gravity, real grass and trees,
clean water, and most importantly, great medical care. A former female friend of the Brad Pitt
character comes on the scene with a little girl who is dying of a terrible
disease, one that cannot be cured on earth where the only hospitals are filthy,
primitive and quite limited in equipment and expertise. If she is to survive, she will have to get to
Elysium where there are machines that can quickly analyze and completely cure
any and all diseases and injuries. The
problem is, the rich, privileged, uncaring, even mean occupants of Elysium don’t want to share. They don’t want earth’s riff raff dirtying up
their clean, ordered lives, except when they need some of those earthlings to
perform menial tasks for them; cleaning their swimming pools, gardening,
serving them cool drinks. So, sadly, the
little girl is doomed to an early death because she isn’t allowed to emigrate
to Elysium. But wait. There is an illegal way to get to Elysium, if
one knows who to contact, has the money to pay, and is willing to take the
risk.
Anyone want to guess what the
author’s message is? You only need to
take half your brain with you if you decide to go see this movie. You could complete a crossword puzzle or read
a book without missing the point of the film. You could read all 22,000 pages of the Affordable Care Act without missing a single important clue in the movie.
Fortunately, this movie will
pass into movie obsolescence without much fanfare. There is hope for it, now that I think about
it. If the administration’s immigration
reform begins with the same level of competence as the Obamacare website, perhaps the movie will get more attention.
