Brad’s Status is a quiet little movie that didn’t get much attention, partly because the title does not roll trippingly off the tongue. But not because of poor production values or mediocre script. It wanders into places most movies don’t touch and ends up hanging between comedy and tragedy, where most plots would have made up their minds long before then.
Brad Sloan (Ben Stiller) is living a comfortable west-coast life in a spacious home with a pretty, preoccupied wife (Jenna Fischer). He owns a nonprofit fundraising organization and she teaches at a university, and together they’ve raised a musically-talented son who will soon be leaving for college. Cue mid-life crisis!
Sure enough, as the big 5-0 rapidly approaches, Brad can’t help thinking of his four college buddies, all of whom went on to be more successful than he: the architect, the super-rich hedge-fund manager, the political pundit, the early retiree cavorting on the beach with swimsuit models. And Brad? The idealism that led him into non-profits leaked out a long time ago. His friends are showing up in magazines and on book jackets, and what’s he got?
I spend so much time inside my mind, puffing myself up . . . and tearing myself down . . .
The action takes place over a single weekend when Brad and his son Troy fly to Boston to visit colleges. Tufts is Dad’s alma mater, but Troy is thinking about Harvard, because there’s a particular music professor he’s interested in. Also, one of his friends from high school is going there now. This is like a gateway of significance to Brad: his son, a Harvard man! He charges past Troy’s vague ambitions (the kid is not sure what he wants, besides music) and starts pulling any strings he can find to score an interview with the admissions counselor. This involves getting in touch with some of the old gang, and in the process he’ll discover that their lives (big surprise) aren’t quite the success he pictured them to be.
But what about his life? At the same time he’s hoping to peg his future value on Troy, Brad is trying to justify the past, or accept it, or regret it. Like a middle-school kid, he takes his cues from his peers, tearing himself down seconds after puffing himself up, envying and resenting his wife, admiring and lecturing his son, reaching for the beauty and meaning that’s just outside his grasp–until it turns and meets him.
He has ducked out of a dinner date with his political-pundit “friend,” and shows up at a concert Troy is attending. Two college girls that Brad met during the course of the day (one of them Troy’s high school friend) are soloing on flute and violin. For the first time all weekend, Brad isn’t scheming or regretting. He’s listening.
I sat there and just listened, and let myself really feel the life inside me. The music was beautiful. The girls were beautiful. I could love them and never possess them. Just like I could love the world and never possess it . . .
I still did love the world.
Later that night, in their hotel room with his son asleep in the bed beside him, Brad lies awake.
I tried to imagine the future . . . I kept saying in my head, We’re still alive. I’m still alive.
We’re still alive. Why? What are we doing here? It seems so random sometimes, the choices we make and the paths we walk down, usually without a great deal of thought. But at the center of each life is one fat wad of ballast called self: what I want, what I need, what I have to have in order to be fulfilled.
Jesus said, “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly. He also said that we must lose our life in order to find it. He lived a life so big we can all find ourselves within it, if we let go. We’re so accustomed to holding on, our fingers lock in position, but surprise can pry them loose. That’s what happens sometimes when the world wraps its arms around us and squeezes us tight, and status updates seem like dusty little points on someone else’s timeline because we’ve found something to genuinely love.
Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it, and sometimes that starts with realizing we’re still alive.
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Note: Brad’s Status is rated R for language
Interesting post. Life is short. Two friends died this week. One a strong Christian who live a long, rich life and who heard God say to him, “Good and faithful servant.”
The other, while claiming to be a believer, never lived like it. I feel very sad and I wish I had made a greater effort in witnessing to him. We were just reading in Romans 13: 8-14 that the night is almost over and the day is almost here. I now understand the urgency of those words.