Musings

A good film left unwatched has a way of finding its way back to you.

It was 2005, seven years ago to be exact— when we were shepherded into the AVA room by our English teacher Miss Sie. A quirky, humorous teacher with an unorthodox pedagogy, she taught us about the world (first and foremost, not just English as a language) through videos and tapes of various documentaries and the Oprah Show, where human interest stories became educational material. She had said that she saw “emphatic potential” in our class, or a capacity for compassion that other classes didn’t quite nail as they aimed for perfect grades. And yet, with her controversial choices of topics, there were always hits and misses, and two particular features on animal cruelty and plastic surgery left an especially bitter and disturbing taste in the impressionable minds of her young students.

She didn’t bother with much pre-empting either, giving little clues as to what we were about to watch, except that it was simply a “Hollywood film.” So we sat ourselves comfortably in the lecture chairs of the AVA room, the lights dimmed and Return to Paradise (1998) came onscreen.

Picture Credits: movieposter.com

The opening themes of brotherhood and kinship resonated with our class of two years. The well-edited film also didn’t waste the wait for important scenes nor the attention of its young, hyperactive audience. We were buying into every scene, cheering on the fearless, backpacker antics of Tony (David Conrad), Sheriff (Vince Vaughn) and Lewis (Joaquin Phoenix), and lapping up the emotional connections that the filmmaker was building between the three characters.

Picture Credits: virtual-history.com

So imagine the audience protests when Beth (Anne Heche) was still getting Tony and Sheriff to return to Penang to save Lewis’ life, as Miss Sie walked up to the computer at the front of the classroom to stop the tape and turn on the lights. In the sudden and unwelcomed glare of the light, the pleas from the ground were deafening. “No, please Miss Sie! We want to know if they return for their friend!” But class time was over, and as we streamed out of the room, one by one, asked our teacher if we would continue the film in another class. Miss Sie’s answer was sheepish, and we never did finish the film.

As we strolled back to class in disappointment, a couple of us expressed our persistence to hunt down a DVD of the film to watch the end. A few wisecracks initiated spoilers (and so a warning, for you dear reader, too): “He dies at the end.” I only recall one student who eventually got her hands on a DVD copy.

So years passed, and the little promise to finish the film lay dormant in the back of my mind. Life caught up, as they say, and even as I always had the memory of Sheriff in Return to Paradise hovering in the shadows of every film starring Vince Vaughn—even as I came to realize that serious roles were not a norm for him—I never did revisit the film again. It was Hollywood, but not well-known, and so before I was initiated into the world of movie streaming, gave up after a few feeble attempts at tracking down the film.

Till a month ago, when its brief memory resurfaced and I decided to download the film to see how it ends.

I hate to stereotype, but like other films about drug trafficking and/or the death penalty such as in Dead Man Walking (1995), Return to Paradise is neither a pretty nor easy film to watch. The most excruciating moments in the coda of Dancer in the Dark (2002) echoes the one in Return. And while film is definitely a fine tool for sensationalism, I can’t really say that such intent for a subject as controversial and as aggravating as human rights denied may necessarily be misaligned. So I know best not to play judge anymore, but admit I can’t help but feel very angry when I watch films like that.

Picture Credits: waleedbarkasiyeh.wordpress.com

Just by applying some literary analysis, it’s really not that hard to spot the ways in which Alan Shadrake frames his prose for emotional effect in Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock. And yet, even with all literary manipulation stripped away, stark reality remains as cruel, and I will never be able to imagine the anger and anguish I would feel as a mother pleading for her son to not be hanged.

Return to Paradise articulates many of these ethical grey lines emphatically, never really demonizing an over-zealous journalist (played by a persistent and highly convincing Jada Pinkett-Smith) for ruining Lewis’ chances of a pardon (while chasing personal glory, she after all, believed in the power of an international newspaper to “work miracles,”), nor does it completely vindicate Beth for petty lies in her attempt to save her (spoiler) baby brother from the gallows.

It’s a film that certainly does not bother with providing a rose-tinted happy ending just because (spoiler again) Lewis’ friends came back for him. With the central emotional arc of the film being the dreaded anticipation of Lewis’ sentence, the film also goes deep in other seemingly unexpected tributaries, such as the love that develops between Beth and Sheriff [which I must frankly say, was quite something because I went from being surprised (a no-nonsense lawyer and a no-backbone loser/jerk), to tickled (3 days to execution and they have the mood?!) and ultimately convinced (the bathtub scene, as sordid as it sounds, was more emotional then raunchy and turned me into mush, and the chemistry between Vaughn and Heche consistently built as the film went by].

Picture Credits: thefancarpet.com

So what does it feel like, getting over a cliffhanger after seven long years? I’ll save you all the clichéd wordplays on “return” and bittersweet “paradise(s),” but the most obvious has to be closure, for one. Also, my appreciation for this film is all the more richer in light of the other films/books I’ve experienced over the years, a pleasant re-assurance that Vince Vaughn does a good job in stepping out of a comedic role, and gratitude for a teacher who once opened the doors (and literally left them open) to a good film I might have missed.