The found footage genre has taken a lot of heat by critics for its generic failings, but one should keep in mind that this genre is still just a toddler. Even so, it has already managed to produce one of the all-time classic horror films in “[Rec]” as well as deliver redemption to a popular filmmaking that was desperate searching for salvation and atonement following his debut. That film, “Regarding Henry” is all up in the face of redemption, salvation and atonement without realizing that its title character is lacking the one single vital component absolutely indispensable to achieving redemption.
J.J. Abrams wrote “Regarding Henry” but only produced “Cloverfield.” The illusion of the director as auteur is flimsy at best, but what to make of attributing the redemptive theme at work in both “Regarding Henry” and “Cloverfield” when Abrams directed neither and did not even write “Cloverfield”? A cursory inspection of Abrams’ career reveals a dedication to the thematic richness inherent in redemption. Was not “Lost” considered to be entirely about this spiritual awakening?
“Cloverfield” works chiefly as part of a movement in Abrams’ career toward greater understanding of redemption within his work, but also on a more personal level as a means of achieving redemption for the shocking failure at the core of “Regarding Henry.” That absolutely indispensable component to achieving redemption is located in awareness of your sin. The title character played by Harrison Ford is a first class a-hole who abuses everyone as a result of what appears to be a total absence of compassion and empathy. It is only after he is shot through the brain and becomes something of a brand new blank slate who can remember nothing of his former self that he learns to love and accept.
The problem is that while Henry may well become a much better man, the story fails as a parable of redemption precisely because Henry does-indeed, cannot-make the conscious choice to seek salvation. Atonement is impossible because he has the capacity to fully transform from bad to good. Once he wakes up from his coma, the old Henry is gone.
Buried within the more obvious political themes of “Cloverfield” is a story of redemption that finds its origins in a shopping trip undertaken by Abrams and his son in a Japanese story selling Godzilla toys. That nugget of creating an American alternative to Godzilla-another monster borne from the politics of its day-could not help but transform in some sense into a redemptive fable.
At first glance, “Cloverfield” seems to be a far more unlikely candidate for redemption than “Regarding Henry.” The characters attending the hip, upscale NYC party at the beginning may be shallow, detached, commercial and smarmy, but in comparison with Henry they can almost be regarded as paragons of virtue. Henry is subject ripe for redemption, but the problem is that it would take some kind of religious miracle to get him to open his eyes. Lacking the creative ability or guts to provide such a miracle, Abrams settles for a bullet to the brain that merely reboots this jackal.
“Cloverfield” offers a much more realistic vision of the power of redemption despite the presence of a monster with the capacity to decapitate the Statue of Liberty. Guys like Henry are pretty much beyond redemption. If you don’t believe that, try to track down how many cannibalistic attorneys have ever turned their back on millions to seek salvation for their sins.
What provides “Cloverfield” its narrative strength as a tale of redemption and what also gives Abrams the chance to redeem himself is the simplicity and purity of the redemptive process. Dozens of small decisions and acts of selflessness and attachment all a believable and coherent sense of redemption that transform these previously shallow and detached characters into a community committed to preservation of the species.
And that’s something that the Henry we originally meet could only regard with smug dismissal.
For more from Timothy Sexton, check out:
“Pulp Fiction”: The Redemption of a Gangster
