The God-Boy and the Parking Lot Preacher
"Levity"

A Film by Ed Solomon
Sony Pictures 2003

"But if the wicked, turning away from the
wickedness he has committed, does what is
right and just, he shall preserve his life;
since he has turned away from all the sins
he has committed, he shall surely live,
he shall not die." (Ezekiel 18:28)

Writer/director Ed Solomon (Men in Black, Charlies Angels) has based the independent flavored movie Levity on a true story. During college he volunteered to help with the UCLA Prison Coalition and worked with a young man who had killed another youth. "He kept a photo of the boy he killed," explains Solomon. "And he would constantly unfold it, turn it over, refold it, only to open it again and stare at it. Until the moment he pulled the trigger, the boy had been a stranger to him. But now he was never without him."

Is it possible for any number of good acts, asks the main character Manuel Jordan (Billy Bob Thornton), to make up for one very bad act? The dialogue in the film would have us think not, but the actions of the characters and the final resolution of the conflict, shows that hope does indeed spring eternal. But don't expect the film to be tied up in a neat package.

Model inmate Jordan is suddenly released from prison where he has served more than twenty years of a life sentence for killing a young man in a robbery gone bad (Why do people always say, "A robbery gone bad?" as if the robbery wasn't bad enough in the first place?) He expects to remain in prison for life because he is burdened by guilt for what he has done. He is paroled and supposed to be living in a rooming house in some unnamed city, but soon leaves and with suitcase in hand, returns to the place of the crime. Along the way he meets an acquaintance from prison who wants him to help rob a store. Manuel firmly refuses. He's been there, done that. It is obvious that he cannot bear any more remorse.

As he stands outside the convenience store where he shot young Abner Easley so long ago, the pay phone suddenly rings. A deep, disembodied male voice asks for the man who tends a parking lot. Manuel ends up at the community center run by the mysterious-sounding caller, Miles Evans (Morgan Freeman) who has asked him, "Where are you going?" Since Manuel doesn't know, Evan hires him to tend the community center parking lot. The young people who use the lot get to park for free as long as they listen to 15 minute sermons by the self-styled preacher Evans before going to the club to dance. "David danced before the Lord. Do you dance for pleasure or for joy?" he asks them. "If it's for pleasure it's only for you. If it's for joy, it's for others. If you want to help yourself, try doing something for someone else."

Manuel moves into the old basement. Though his suitcase may seem like the burden, it is actually a picture of his victim, Abner Easley (Geoffrey Wigdor) that is the weight on his soul. Manuel tacks the picture on the wall and spends his free time contemplating his crime.

Meanwhile, he has to keep rescuing a lost soul, Sofia Mellinger (Kirsten Dunst) when she passes out from her self-destructive behavior at the dance club. "Why do you keep doing this?" he asks her. "You are just wasting space." What is interesting here is that as Manuel "preaches" to Sofia, he is actually talking to himself. He tracks down Abner's older sister, Adele (Holly Hunter) who has a troubled teenaged son named for her dead brother. Manuel and Adele become friends, and then, once, lovers. Manuel never tells her who he is. He "confesses" his breach of conduct to the preacher, Miles.

Two times during the film we are presented with Manuel's five-step program for redemption that he once read in a book: 1) acknowledge what you did wrong; 2) have remorse; 3) make it right - if you have stolen something from a neighbor, make restitution; 4) make it right with God and 5) to return (in your moral imagination) to the same place, the same situation and choose to act differently. But Manuel doesn't believe he can do numbers thee and four and since he cannot return to the same place and time to do it differently, he is stuck forever on step two. He has experienced a conversion from sin, but feels unredeemed and so he concludes that salvation is not for him. Anyway, he believes that God doesn't exist. "Why are you so afraid of someone you don't believe in?" Miles asks Manuel with a laugh. Why indeed? (And why the laugh?)

One day, the FBI come looking for someone named Johnny that Miles says he used to know a long time ago, a good boy. Miles tells Manuel he has to go away for a funeral and asks him to take over preaching to the parking lot crowd as well as talking to the kids at the community center. Manuel starts talking to the kids who mouth off at him and laugh at his efforts. Sofia turns up and she and the boys have an instant rapport because she's as mouthy as they are. The kids (who are pretty funny) start calling Manuel the "God-Boy." Miles returns but only briefly, and we find out who he really is.

"Why do you keep doing this?" he asks her. "You are just wasting space." He tracks down Abner's older sister, Adele (Holly Hunter) who has a troubled teenaged son named for her dead brother. Manuel and Adele become friends, and then, once, lovers. Manuel never tells her who he is. He "confesses" his breach of conduct to the preacher, Miles.

Two times during the film we are presented with Manuel's five-step program for redemption that he once read in a book: 1) acknowledge what you did wrong; 2) have remorse; 3) make it right - if you have stolen something from a neighbor, make restitution; 4) make it right with God and 5) to return (in your moral imagination) to the same place, the same situation and choose to act differently. But Manuel doesn't believe he can do numbers 3 and 4 and since he cannot return to the same place and time to do it differently, he is stuck forever on step 2. He has experienced a conversion from sin, but feels unredeemed and so he concludes that salvation is not for him. Anyway, he believes that God doesn't exist. "Why are you so afraid of someone you don't believe in?" Miles asks Manuel with a laugh. Why indeed? (And why the laugh?)

One day, the FBI come looking for someone named Johnny that Miles says he used to know a long time ago, a good boy. Miles tells Manuel he has to go away for a funeral and asks him to take over preaching to the parking lot crowd as well as talking to the kids at the community center. Manuel starts talking to the kids who mouth off at him and laugh at his efforts. Sofia turns up and she and the boys have an instant rapport because she's as mouthy as they are. The kids (who are pretty funny) start calling Manuel the "God-Boy." Miles returns but only briefly, and we find out who he really is.

In the final part of the film, Adele's son is shot and he and his friends plan revenge. Adele asks Manuel to talk to the boy, but to no avail. Let me just say Manuel's five step program, which resonates so well with Christian spirituality, provides a framework for how he and the other lost souls are redeemed. Miles seems to be just a rough hewn savior-figure at first but by the end, he seems even more in need of redemption than the ones he helped on their way. The question is, where is Miles in the five-step redemption program?

Dante Alighieri described hell as cold and frozen. Levity was filmed in February in Montreal, in the seedy part of town that resembles hell, or maybe purgatory. The atmosphere is dirty, barren and messy, both from the view of the community center where Manuel lives and works and the ratty rave club that young people frequent at night to get stoned or worse. There is a sense of suspended animation created by the shadows, the stairways, subway tunnels, empty houses and streets as well as the distant skyscrapers that light up the cold clear nights. Maybe this nameless sad city is not hell, though, but a waiting place where there is still a chance for new life.

The Manuel character is somewhat ambiguous. His hair is long and reminded me of Jean Valjean when he escaped from prison in Les Miserables. Towards the end, however, there is a kind of glow around his head. Is his character's look is a suggestion of a Christ-figure? Can someone be redeemed and a redeemer? Again, filmmaker Solomon says, no, Manuel is not meant to be a Christ-figure but a picture of what a man would look like after so many years in prison and bearing so much guilt.

Despite its title, neither Manuel nor the film seems to want to crack a smile. The other characters, on the other hand, make funny cracks all the way through, for which the audience is most grateful. Humor is indeed, a saving grace, a lesson Manuel slowly, (very, very slowly) learns.

At one point in the film, Manuel is on top of a building, throwing snow balls on the ground below. He says he is thinking about "gravity" - which could also have been the title of this rather talkative, darkly tinted movie. Levity reminds me of an O. Henry-type story or even a Graham Greene tale about God's relentless pursuit of the soul. The ending is not what you expect and the filmmakers play it just right. By calling the film "Levity" the film can deal with real life topics that concern society with their "gravity" such as crime, murder, and guilt - so very much guilt. The story bears witness that there is a zone that is not purgatory or hell but where the possibility for spiritual renewal is revealed and human beings can find hope and redemption in each other and God.

Levity is not a subtle film but one that you will surely want to talk about, ". since the wicked man has turned away from all the sins he has committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die." Hope springs eternal.