A Look at Brokeness and Healing through Two Classic Films Part I

Introduction
We are broken people living in a broken world, so how should we pursue a sense of wholeness?  How do we find healing? What are we being healed for?  How does our sense of calling in life connect with our ability to find wholeness?  These are a couple of the themes that are addressed in Patch Adams and Good Will Hunting.

Plot Summary of Patch Adams
We meet Hunter Adams in the Psychiatric Institution, where he admits himself after attempting to take his life.  He goes to find healing from the doctors, but instead finds healing through the patients.  He finds healing as he helps the patients, thus earning the nickname “Patch.”  Arthur Mendelson asks Patch a question that sticks with him through the film, “How many fingers do you see?”  Through this question, Arthur helps Patch to focus beyond the problem in order to find solutions.  One of the keys to healing is looking at life from a different perspective.

Two years later Patch finds himself at a Medical Institution to get trained to be a doctor.  While Dean Wilcott and the institution want to “train the humanity” out of the students and make them Doctors, Patch Adams sees a need to bring humanity back into the healing process.  This sets up a major conflict between the institutional way of treating diseases to the Patch Adams way of bringing healing.

In the end, Patch realizes he needs to create a space outside of the institution, in order to bring a sense of healing to people.  As he takes this journey, he is able to dodge the arrows of the institution and endure the loss of the love of his life, because he realizes that wholeness comes when we are willing to lose our life by helping others.

Plot Summary of Good Will Hunting
Will Hunting lives in the tough part of South Boston with his buddies and works as a janitor at M.I.T..  He can solve math problems better than the M.I.T. professors, but has difficulty working through the issues of his own life.

Will is a genius when it comes to book knowledge, but an infant when it comes to understanding himself.  While he can speak about economics, science, history and art better than most people on the planet, he finds himself getting in fights, stealing cars and incapable of building a meaningful relationship with a woman.

He avoids a jail sentence by taking the invitation to work with Professor Lambeau and making a commitment to meet with a therapist.  Sean, the fifth therapist, helps Will to understand that there is much more to life than just book knowledge, and that the way to wholeness is by living, by experiencing, and by making commitments to imperfect people. 

Professor Lambeau wants Will to start thinking about the future and use his gifts to become successful.  Yet Sean, his therapist, wants Will to honestly face his past and find healing first.  As Will honestly works through his past and becomes more whole, he is able to take the risk to follow his heart, and leave his friends and a successful career to explore what it means to follow his passions and pursue life with a soul mate.

In part II I will take a look that the themes and issues these films bring up, and then in part III look at the insights the modernity and postmodernity make on these two films.

Comments

[Chris Garner]

Hi JR :)
(i'm back from time away at conference..)

thanks so much for this - i love that you are using movies that arent the latest..thanks for not just looking for the newest thing but finding what works well!
(especially as you live in the media capital of the world, its impressive that you arent driven by the latest 'thing'!)

to answer:How does our sense of calling in life connect with our ability to find wholeness?
i think it comes out of being authentic, doing what God is already at work in the city, and not just starting up a new ministry to be the first!

[JR Woodward]

Chris,

Glad to see you back my friend. I'm glad you enjoyed this post. I also appreciate your insightful thoughts and reminder of the simplicity of the combination of being who God made us to be and coming alongside what He is doing. Welcome back.

[Chris Garner]

Hey bro,
have you seen 'We are Marshall'? We watched it this weekend and were blown away by the strong message of 'team' that comes through and applies SO well to the church!

This movie gives a wonderful journey through the character's healing as well as how they pull together in their different roles to serve the whole college; capturing well what being a 'priesthood of all believers' means...not just relying on key 'chief priest' positions..

Kinda like a church working with people who each understand their calling and serve with other churches in the city, in the workplace, uni's etc - and not being all about just working within their own church context.

there are some fantastic lines in the film as well as understandings as some people realise their role in the whole picture!

I'd be really interested in what you think about this one!
blessings//chris

[JR Woodward]

Chris,

I haven't had the chance to see it yet, so thanks for the tip.

[Kevin Cieslukowski]

my favorite line from Patch Adams is as the movie opens and he says that all of life is a coming home.

how do you like those apples?

:)

[JR Woodward]

Kevin,

That was a really cool line. I love his reaction to the arrogant Harvard student.