This week we viewed the film “The Answer Man”. The film follows the story of a religious author, who is not so religious. Through the story viewers are shown how many people turn to religion for answers to cope with certain situations in life. This film also explores the dangers of defining religion. When thinking of religion most people think about an organized group of people who share a common belief in a higher power. This doesn’t seem to be the case of our author, Faber, who, based on this definition is nowhere near religious. Throughout the movie Faber is trying to escape his book, Me and God, by avoiding his fans and keeping his identity a secret, until he falls, hard, for his chiropractor. This romantic interest leads Faber to spend the majority of the movie fighting for her attention and approval by altering his personality from scrooge to spiritual guru. However, this is not the only relationship that Faber develops in the film. My interest through the film lied with the relationship that seem to build through the movie between Faber and the book store owner, Kris Lucas. Lucas is a troubled character fighting with addiction and familial problems who works out an agreement with Faber. The agreement is Lucas takes Faber’s books in exchange for wisdom and answers to life questions, since the title The Answer Man. I found this growing relationship interesting because it seems to change not only Lucas but Faber as well.
I was a little disappointed with the end of the movie. Specifically with Arlen’s character. When I started the movie I just knew that his character would find a new attitude with the addition of the love interest, Elizabeth. Instead, there were gradual changes or behaviors that led to the slight personal development that he goes through. So far, I think this is the closest movie we’ve come to that has a clear connection to religion. However, I think that it paints a super realistic and accurate depiction of western christianity, as experienced for many people. Many people claim to follow a certain religion for several reasons, (like they were born into it, they find comfort in believing in an afterlife, so on and so fourth) but fall short in what most would call their religious practices. This leads me back to the age old question of what dictates who is apart of a religion and what makes something a religion.
Like many, I have also looked to religions for answers when facing difficult times in life. I have practiced christianity since I was a child, I have always approached other religions with an open mind and have adapted some beliefs and practices that I felt benefited me spiritually. On paper I would identify as Christian. However, based on the common definition, I would fall somewhere within the confines of Agnostic or Omnism. I believe the same can be said for Faber. While he may not be a “practicing” Christian I believe that he believes in something and defining religion only boxes him in causing him to fall into this image that is projected onto him by viewers and by his fans. Throughout life, we are taught that definition is important to give any word meaning, but never thought the complexity that comes with defining something and the effect that it has. When you block something into a word cage life definition you are prone to excluding certain details that may be vital for the word at hand. We can see a similar philosophy in Steven Rameys chapter, “Do all religious adherents believe in the concept of a higher power?” When he states, “there are so many religions that “complicate the emphasis on a singular higher power” (Ramey, 2017). I think that this quote sums up the harmful affects of defining anything muchness religion, because religion is based on ideas and ideologies and its not likely that you find a group of people that have the exact same thought and not one difference between each other.
Overall, despite the subtle change in character development, I really enjoyed viewing this film as a romantic-comedy and applying religious philosophy to it.
Works Cited
Ramey, Steven. “8. Do all religious adherents believe in the concept of a higher power?.” Religion in Five Minutes. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 30-32. 2017.
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