I ended up writing a review of a movie I don’t much like. It’s entirely optional to the main point of this post, so you can jump past it.
Joy and I watched Outcome on Apple TV the other day. Keanu Reeves stars as actor who is returning to the limelight after recovering from a heroin addiction. His name in the film is “Reef Hawk” which is somehow not an anagram of Keanu Reeves. It opens promisingly enough with an imagined appearance of Reef on Carson.
Only after watching the movie did I discover that the kid in the video is actually Joey Lawrence who really did perform Give My Regards to Broadway on the Tonight Show in 1982:
So the movie goes downhill from there. Most of it is backlit by an eternally setting sun streaming into what’s supposed to be Keanu’s Malibu beach house or backlit by harsh midday sun streaming into what’s supposed to be Keanu’s lawyer’s office. (The lawyer is played by Jonah Hill, who also co-wrote and directed Outcome.) I mention the lighting because it’s likely to be the only memorable part of the production. A positive spin is that it lends a certain magical realism to the story. I spent inordinate time wondering if it was AI-generated.
What story there is revolves around a blackmail threat that sends Keanu (on his lawyer’s advice) around town to apologize to anyone who might have a reason to sabotage his career. It’s largely an excuse to bring in various stars for unconvincing scenes recounting the hurt Reef caused in vague terms. Martin Scorsese plays an agent for child actors who meets with clients in a bowling alley/arcade. Drew Barrymore plays Drew Barrymore interviewing Keanu on The Drew Barrymore Show. David Spade rents the beach house next door.
A pivotal scene about halfway through introduces Reef Hawk’s mother played by Susan Lucci. I didn’t recognize her, but Joy told me she’s a soap opera star known for being snubbed by the Daytime Emmys. At any rate, Reef and his mother have a touching moment discussing their past at a restaurant and immediately after his heartfelt apology, the camera pulls back to reveal it’s all a set. His mother is a star on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and the whole thing is being filmed for the show.
Reef’s mother wants to get another reaction shot for post production and Reef himself feels betrayed. He complains it’s all performative while she argues it can be both performative and authentic at the same time. And, of course, Reef’s apology tour is entirely performative unless he inadvertently falls into earnestness.
The climax of the movie, so to speak, reveals that the blackmail video is a recording of Reef engaged in internet sex with a stranger. He was on location far from friends and just wanted to connect with someone (and satisfy his sexual urge). It wasn’t about the people Reef had hurt in his addiction, but just someone hoping to make some money off a random encounter. It’s not clear if the blackmail payload is the sex stuff or the loneliness of a Hollywood star.
The movie wraps with Keanu making real efforts to rebuild the relationships he had destroyed. The ending’s not quite earnest enough to save the film and the rest is not quite funny enough to recommend.
On Forgiveness
So why did I write about a subpar movie? Well it does understand one thing about apologies: they’re only effective if the audience is the person who was wronged.
I’m reminded of the worst apology I’ve ever had the misfortune to observe. The actual apology was, “We’re sorry for the confusion and uneasiness [our actions] caused.” It’s not an apology, but a veiled wish for everyone to just move on. It was a statement of regret over the consequences of their actions, not the actions themselves. The person who was wronged was an afterthought at best.
Why do people make these misdirected apologies? Because people don’t understand the heart of forgiveness. Fundamentally forgiveness requires a desire to repair relationships. Apologies mark the start of the repair, not the completion. “I’m sorry” is a request for forgiveness that may be declined. It’s not a magical phrase to fix your problem with someone else.
This concept of forgiveness comes from a broken theology of grace. Despite the increasing secularization of the West, we still have a foundation in Protestant theology. Deep down we believe that God will forgive if we just ask. If God forgives when we apologize, shouldn’t we forgive too? Of course! But don’t ignore the work God did to forgive.
The Bible begins with two creation stories. In the first, God speaks everything into existence and declares it good. When he created humans (male and female) and finished his work, he said it was very good. In the second story, God gets his hands dirty to make the first man. When he sees the man is incomplete, God created the first woman. And when the snake convinces the first couple to sin, he expelled them from the garden he created.
And then the man and the woman apologized and God forgave them and they returned to the garden to live out their lives as if nothing had happened.
Of course that’s not what happened. Instead, God initiated a plan that spanned milenia and culminated in the sacrifice of his one and only son in order to reconcile with humanity. We want to say the magic words to make problems go away and the one who could speak the universe into existence chose to suffer for people instead.
When our apologies are motivated by a desire to “move on” they fail at their fundamental purpose of restoring relationships. They jump to the end of the story without doing the work of building the bridges between ourselves and others. Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls that “cheap grace”. It ignores the cost God paid to restore our relationships with him.
Now I know there are times when a relationship is not possible: the other person has died, for instance. And it is still healthy to forgive even when the relationship isn’t restored. But if we focus on how forgiveness helps us, we are never going to truly forgive.