Sympathy for Delicious

I just finished watching this movie, while also dyeing my hair--get ready kids, it's way redder than intended--and I cannot recommend it enough.  The movie, not the hair color.  Though, I am happy with both.

Sympathy for Delicious is Mark Ruffalo's directorial debut, he also stars in it. I've been wanting to see it since I first read about it months ago somewhere I can't possibly remember.  The basic premise is that Dean "Delicious" O'Dwyer, an up and coming dj, is recently disabled and seeks out the world of faith healing as a means of coping.  Christopher Thornton, who plays Delicious, also wrote the screenplay, and while I had not heard of him prior, I am now completely impressed,intrigued and maybe a touch obsessed with him.

Thornton had been a working actor for some time when, at 25, he was in an accident that took the use of his legs.  He was unsure of his future in acting, but six months after his accident he was cast as Estragon in a production of "Waiting for Godot."  He played the role in his wheelchair and was so astounding that he won a Drama-Logue award for his performance.  In 2000, he played the role of Hamlet and received incredible reviews; he is the only actor known to have played that role from a wheelchair.  As a former actress and current director, I can only imagine the limitations that must have caused, but I am also fascinated by what amazing freedom that would have given an actor to rely so solely on his face, his gestures, his inflection.  Imagine if all you had to communicate your rage, your terror, your love was your face and arms, your tears and hands, your voice...incredible.

It's stories like this one--Thornton's and the one at the heart of the film--that simply humble me within an inch of my life.  I have been through quite a bit of personal trauma over the last few years, but it pales in comparison to the revision of life that must take place when something as fundamental as your mobility ceases to be what you had known before.

The film speaks to me on several levels--it is a story of personal failure, redemption, faith--both losing and regaining it--but it is fundamentally a story of what it means to be on the road to figuring out who you are, not always liking that person, but knowing there is no other damn road you could possibly be on.  Juliette Lewis--who most recently blew me away in the film Conviction (another totally worth the price of rental)--was brilliant as a drug addled musician trying to connect to anyone who would see her, and Mark Ruffalo's priest intent on being a bright light in the lives of his Skid Row congregants was understated and powerful and sexy as always--that part's not integral to the film, but Lord is that man attractive.

I am learning to let my life unfold before me with no plans or expectations because I am learning that no amount of perceived control ever feels as good as the genuine surprise and gratitude that stems from things working out on their own.  This film and the story of its writer both reminded me today of how, even after seemingly horrifying moments, our lives have a way of turning towards the sun unexpectedly, and a brightness is revealed that would never have been visible to us had we not spent so much time in the dark.