Marvelous

Rating: Null/10 (25 November 2002)

I didn't want to watch this film. My wife had purchased the DVD and finally conned me into sitting down and watching it. I thought it was going to be an artsy-fartsy yet cynical look at American suburban life.
It turned out to be something completely different.
I've read alot of reviews on this site, saying that it glorified infidelity, drug addiction (he was smoking pot folks, not shooting heroin) and pedophelia. I disagree completely, I saw the movie saying that despite these shortcomings the characters may suffer from, they too are human beings despite, and underneath, their foibles. The shortcomings weren't what you were supposed to focus on, but rather what the shortcomings ultimately led to.
You don't need to be a "Liberal pinko" to see the message that this movie is trying to put forth. Jesus Christ, a favorite amongst Conservatives (especially the Christian ones) taught that you shouldn't let material possessions come between you and "spiritual" fulfillment (ie, happiness). I didn't see this movie as an attack on anything American, so much as I saw it an attack on what plagues *all* humans; greed, lost youth and insecurity.
Even the ex-Marine, who if this movie were true "Liberal propaganda" would *never* be portrayed as a thinking and feeling human, is shown to be an insecure, confused man who despite the facade of fascist-like control is actually plagued by his own demons, and is shown to be very, very human after all. A man who was truer to what others thought was right than a man who was true to himself, and suffered for it to the point where he can't even really be a father no matter how much he wants to.
Pay attention to the messages this movie delivers, rather than whether or not you thought the messenger lived up to your moral standards.