The Count of Monte Cristo
(2002, 118 minutes, PG-13)

All the fascinating characters, swashbuckling, treasure, intrigue, revenge, and romance in this new version of the 1844 Alexandre Dumas novel can't obscure the major player of the story--God.

Events in the life of Edmund Dantes, superbly played by James Caviezel, always come back to the consideration of God—the nature of a supreme being and that power's involvement in life. The situations that turn Edmund into the Count of Monte Cristo provide a grand lesson in learning to accept a God that is always present and that has a divine plan in which all is working for the greatest good, despite appearances to the contrary.

After he is betrayed by his supposed friend Fernand Mondego (Guy Pearce), falsely accused of treason and sentenced to an island prison, Edmund discovers this statement carved into the wall of his cell: "God will give me justice."

A trusting, brave, faithful, honest and loyal man, Edmund believes in God and God's justice and he is shocked at the prison warden's declaration, "God has nothing to do with it."

Edmund declares, "God has everything to do with it. He's everywhere. He sees everything."

But Edmund's faith is severely tested during solitary, tormenting years in prison. Edmund reaches a point when he says, "God has faded from my heart" and admits that all he wants is revenge. Edmund is a dramatic example of all of us when situations are not what we expect or want or what we would normally term good or happy, and when we feel abandoned by God.

It takes time, as it often does for people going through trying circumstances, to realize that God does indeed work in mysterious ways and that, in the cosmic scheme of things, everything somehow is working together, despite appearances, for the highest good of all involved.

For Edmund, the realization of the Big Picture of God's involvement begins to come when a priest named Faria, played by Richard Harris, accidentally digs through the floor of Edmund's prison cell. The priest helps Edmund first by giving him a different picture of his relationship with God and of God's methods.

"I don't believe in God," Edmund says.

"That doesn't matter," the priest replies. "He believes in you."

The priest probably rightly ascertains that Edmund's core faith in God runs deep, though it is understandably shadowed by years of suffering. But the priest assists Edmund in realizing that his thoughts of revenge could be having a loftier purpose. "Perhaps your thoughts of revenge were keeping you alive for God's purpose these seven years."

The Dumas story does indeed reveal that Edmund has more of the important God work of loving and helping others to do.

The priest tells Edmund that there is something more precious—and ultimately more liberating—than freedom, and that is knowledge. "Freedom can be taken away," he explains, and knowledge cannot. The priest assists Edmund in expanding his knowledge and abilities in a variety of ways, including swordplay and reading. Undoubtedly, the priest considers awareness of God to be the most liberating form of knowledge.

When physical freedom does come for Edmund, he remains committed to revenge, but it is a revenge tempered by the priest's teachings and example. The priest encourages Edmund to use his knowledge and abilities "for good, only good."

When circumstances reunite Edmund with his former fiancee, now the wife of the man who betrayed him, God's presence and purpose again come to the forefront.

"God has offered us a new beginning," Mercedes tells Edmund.

"Can I never escape Him?" Edmund asks.

"No, He is in everything," she replies.

Edmund has told Mercedes' son, "What makes you a man is what you do when the storm comes." Edmund has survived a big storm of his own and worked through much anger and grief; in so doing, he proves himself a man open to living from an awareness of God's presence.

Like most people, Edmund sometimes is his own worst enemy in coming to an understanding that life doesn't have to be so difficult if we, to use the popular phrase, "let go and let God," and if we center ourselves in knowing and expressing love and compassion.

The count's loyal assistant, Jacobo (Luis Guzman) tells Edmund, "I will protect you, even if it means I must protect you from yourself." It is sometimes good to have friends and family around who will do that for us.

As wrongs are righted and injustices are corrected or exposed during the film, there are occasions of cruelty and even murder, but there is also a sense that the human sufferings are part of a bigger unfoldment that has meaning beyond human perception.

Edmund seems to have a knowledge and awe of God's immense plan, and he is able eventually to move beyond revenge. "All that was used for vengeance will now be used for good," Edmund declares. With such an awareness of God's presence and purpose, Edmund has at last received justice.

Iris
(2002, 90 minutes, R)

As for tongues, knowledge and prophecies, they will all come to an end--but not love.

As for physical communication, writings, and mental achievements, they will come to an end - but not love.

The life of popular and prolific British novelist Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) as presented in this film based on two books by her husband, distinguished literary critic John Bayley, is a testament to the famous biblical passage about "The Gift of Love":

"If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

"Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

"Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge it will come to an end ... And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." (1 Cor. 13:1-13)

Iris, directed by Richard Eyre, skillfully follows the young Iris and John (played by Kate Winslet and Hugh Bonneville), as well as the older twosome (played by Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent) during the novelist's increasing Alzheimer's. Alternatingly viewing the different periods of the couple's life and love is bittersweet and extremely moving, but shows the dimensions and strengths of love as chronicled in 1st Corinthians.

Iris strongly believed in the freedom of the mind. She was talented, opinionated, independent, inquisitive, and adventuresome--in many respects a "noisy gong or a clanging cymbal" in the literary world and within her society of many friends.

Through her writings, both of fiction and philosophy, she delved into the mysteries of relationships and expressed much knowledge of life.

But it is not the knowledge or the mortal exploits that endure, Iris realized.

"Love's the only language everyone understands," she says.

It is Iris's love--her love of life, of her art, of John--that endures.

As disturbing as it is to witness Iris's loss of memory and abilities, it is comforting to realize that her love survives in the hearts of those who knew and love her and in her writings that have touched so many people.

The lengthy, loving relationship between Iris and John illustrates love bearing all things while believing and hoping and rejoicing in the truth and the pursuit of goodness.

"Nothing matters except loving what is good," Iris says. She explains that her novels explore individual freedom and what it means to be good and to love.

As Iris's mind becomes eclipsed by the disease, John is increasingly required to call forth the virtues of patience, kindness, and unconditional love in caring for her. There are times under the strain when John does become irritable and frustrated, but he always returns to the truth of his love.

In a speech, Iris discusses her belief that "being pure ourselves," humans once were able to see pure forms. Iris depicts the physical impure forms in coping with mortal limitations while, in various levels of awareness, touching the purity of eternal love.

Raymond Teague is the author of Reel Spirit: A Guide to Movies That Inspire, Explore and Empower, from Unity House. He is an award-winning journalist, an editor of spiritual publications, a popular New Thought speaker, and a lifelong movie buff. His book is available at bookstores; on-line at amazon.com, bn.com, borders.com, and by phone at
1 (800) 669-0282.