Enjoyment not in the Heart of the Beholder

Movie attempt a sad failure

It is surely a bad sign in a movie when the title has to be explained. Peter Greenaway didn't find it necessary to have one of his characters in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and her Lover say, 'This tragedy never would have happened if the cook, the thief, his wife and her lover had eaten at different restaurants.'

If a journalist character hadn't said early into Heart of the Beholder that morality was truly 'not in the eyes, but in the heart of the beholder,' I would have reserved judgment for at least another ten minutes.

Heart of the Beholder has all the production values and subtlety of a midday movie. The dialogue is appalling. The way it is shot made me actually wonder whether it was going to dissolve into porn in one scene, when Diane Howard, wife of the piece, rips off her top to reveal racy red underwear.

Mike and Diane Howard, a young couple expecting their first child, take a chance on the new phenomenon of video tapes and launch a video library. Their stores are a success, but when the film The Last Temptation of Christ comes out on video and the Howards are the only store in Missouri willing to stock it, a local and vocal church group makes its disapproval clear. After pickets and protests and even death threats fail to sway the Howards, the church blackmails a corrupt DA to lay down the law, and although the ensuing court case is won by Mike, the family's video library business is a bust and must be sold to a friend in the ensuing bankruptcy.

After that, the sad story takes a twist. Lost, without his family, and on the verge of suicide, Mike decides to get revenge on the church group that ruined him. Contacting a survivalist acquaintance, Mike loads up with ammo and goes after the churchgoers in a terrifying round of... paintball. A somewhat unconventional mode of revenge, perhaps, but the outcome is that Mike learns the truth behind his persecution - and, in a shock twist, that the man who made an attempt on Mike's daughter's life during the court case had been put up to it by one of Mike's own best friends, the man who had ended up with his stores.

From there, the story plunges on toward a 'happy' ending. The corrupt DA gets his comeuppance - not before Dianne has to pose as a prostitute, revealing her racy red underwear again and getting some girl-on-girl action in the process - and... well, actually, that's about as happy as the ending gets.

Yet the film's story is, disturbingly, true. Ken Tipton, who wrote and directed the film, spent more than ten years attempting to tell his family's story. As the film's web site points out, it is hardly a unique one. In the years before The Last Temptation of Christ came out, Tipton's stores were visited repeatedly by the National Federation for Decency, asking for certain movies to be removed. Films from Taxi Driver to Blazing Saddles were targeted.  One of the leaders of the group demanded the removal of the movie SPLASH, claiming the movie promoted bestiality because Tom Hanks has sex with a mermaid. When refusing to remove Temptation from their stores, the Tiptons received death threats against their young daughter saying she would be "... sent back to God to be reborn to parents who worship the Lord." An LA Law episode inspired Ken to paintball the crap out of the group after his family went bankrupt and he and his wife divorced.

In a very ham-handed way, the film highlights many concerning issues. The church group involved in the film is clearly doing its best to infringe the right to free speech, and they are helped greatly by the media in slandering the Howards. The not-so-stunning revelation is made that Middle America believes what it sees on TV, and the Howards are ruined by the small minds around them despite legal victories.

Ultimately, the film suffers most from lack of commitment. No doubt Tipton wanted to show the truth of what his family had been through, but he fails to provide any clear-cut message through the film. Though the church group that persecutes the family initially seems to bear its share of responsibility for what happens to them, in the end the story focuses on the individuals that have betrayed the Howards and the deliberate, calculated persecution of the family by the church group is practically forgotten.