I heart Huckabees!

I really do! After standing in the video shop for half an hour, feeling mounting frustration over the endless amounts of pointless rubbish that Hollywood churns out, it was a delight to watch a film that is actually about something. The quality is not entirely consistent, but at least they tried! The central idea - of 'existential detectives' who can be hired to spy on their client so as to discover the meaning behind his or her life - is gold. The efforts of the two American detectives (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin) to help their clients find meaning are constantly threatened by their French counterpart (Isabelle Huppert), who is devoted to guiding her clients into the truth that life is cruel and meaningless. It's a philosophical morality play!

The scene that has really lingered in my mind, however, is the one in which two main characters - Tommy and Albert - have dinner with a middle-class Christian family. Tommy is a disillusioned firefighter, obsessed with the 'petroleum problem', while Albert is an idealistic greenie and dreadful poet. They are invited to dinner with the Christian family because of their interest in a Sudanese orphan the family is fostering. The family is carefully and caustically portrayed - secure in their self-righteousness as 'good people' (they've adopted an orphan from Africa, after all!), convinced that the American way of life is inherently good, immediately threatened by any suggestion that they have contributed to the broader problems of the world. When Tommy suggests that suburban sprawl and thoughtless consumption of petrol has contributed to the kind of war and violence that left the Sudanese boy orphaned, the teenage daughter announces with great anxiety that 'Jesus isn't angry with us if we accept him in our hearts'. Tommy responds: 'Yes he is, I'm sorry, yes he really is'.

A neat portrayal of the moral dead-end of much of modern evangelicalism. Not, of course, fair to the many western Christians (including evangelicals) who have a broader perspective. But the temptation to bolster our own righteousness by doing sentimental good on a small scale while developing theological justifications for ignoring the broader forces of evil at work - so recognisable! Have mercy on us, O Lord.