Tiffany and I watched the movie "Seven Pounds" the other night. My parents were over and we went up to blockbuster and decided to rent something entertaining. We were misled.
Seven Pounds is a depressing and predictable drama starring the Fresh Prince himself, Will Smith. (BTW, what ever happened to the actor who played Carlton?) It is the story of a very wealthy CEO who owns an aeronautical engineering company. One night he is driving down the freeway with his wife and he is texting (a pet peeve of mine.) Not looking at the road he causes a major crash, it kills his wife and 6 other people.
Apparently, he is subsequently spending several years in a downward spiral of depression. FInally, he hatches a plan of self-made redemption. He will steal his brothers IRS agent ID, hack into the governments computers to find 7 worthy individuals, give these people his most valueable items, and then join his victims in the afterlife. His choices for "good" people are pretty mundane:
A blind meat home delivery telemarketer, an abused Hispanic women and her two kids, a young black boy in need of bone marrow, a hockey coach needing a kidney, and a young woman with congenital heart failure.
As the movie progresses, we see Will Smith moving into a hotel, ignoring his brother, and then we see the unfolding of a relationship between Will and the woman with heart failure (Rosario Dawson). She is really lonely for some reason AND she is always two seconds from sudden death - sad. Will befriends her, helps her in numerous ways, then sleeps with her. She is smitten with him and allows herself to dream of marriage and kids even. Will goes to her doctor and asks the chance of her survival - he is told 3-5%. That night, without a word to anyone, he kills himself in a bizarre self-induced jellyfish attack.
This movie stunk it up. It was plodding, easy to decipher, and incredibly melancholy. I believe that the producers were looking to create a moving story about a man making his own salvation by doing good things for good people, before dying himself. I saw Will Smiths actions are extremely selfish and pathetically cowardly. Suicide never proves beneficial for anyone. The person is dead, and while they may escape the pain of this world, they might not escape the torment of eternity without God - depends I guess. Also, tons of people are left behind with questions and grief.
In this movie, Will Smith romances this girl, has sex with her, sneaks out without a word, kills himself, gives her his heart. Not heroic. It would have been heroic to have given that girl love and peace and joy regardless of the time she had left or whether she got a donor or not. At the end of the movie we see Rosario Dawson acting all happy that she is alive with Wills heart. In reality, I think that most women would have been devastated by what Will did. It was a wierd movie.
In the end, I know a better story. Its a moving story about a God-man who freely gives away his salvation by doing the ultimate good thing (bearing our penalty unto death) and the gift that is given is given to wretched, horrific people, folks who do not deserve it. At the end of this story is real heart replacement and eternal joy, no pain and no grief. I wish more people would make movies about that story and the countless stories that have been inspiried by it.
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