Our Idiot Brother: Midterm Paper

“Gimple the Fool” is a story about a man that chose to trust people, and even though he was taken for a fool quite a bit, he never wanted to take a chance on calling someone a liar when they might be telling the truth. The rabbi in the story said, ““It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself.”

The story of Gimple, however similar, has a much heavier feeling than the story told in the film Our Idiot Brother. Ned is a man who is arrested for selling drugs to a uniformed police officer after the police officer said it had been a “hard week.” Ned’s character is so compassionate and trusting that he believed the officer, who all along had been trying to trick him. After Ned gets out of jail, his girlfriend that he was living with has moved on and he needs to find somewhere else to live. He spends time living with each of his three sisters, and with each of them, he ends up revealing a truth in their life that addresses a key problem with their character or relationships. Throughout the film, Ned is constantly honest and childlike and though his sisters blame him for the disaster that he only actually brings to the surface.

In the film, Ned at one point says, “I like to think that if you put your trust out there, I mean if you really give people the benefit of the doubt and see their best intentions, people will rise to the occasion.” Now, Our Idiot Brother fits the comedy bill far more than “Gimple the Fool,” because Gimple’s tale is a little sad, whereas Ned’s is comedy both in genre and in plot. Ned is an extremely likeable character, and not like most likeable characters that are clever and witty and mysterious; he isn’t Dr. House or Indiana Jones or Jack Sparrow. He literally just tries to do good and tell the truth. Ned is refreshingly genuine and without ulterior motives and I feel like his is a story that reflects the gospel. The film has off-color parts, as does life, but through it all, Ned could have become jaded and calloused, but his personality remained continuously. He brought people’s shortcomings to their attention without being condemning and always with love. He bore no resentment to people who had wronged him, not the police officer who tricked him, or his sisters who used him for career advancement or blamed him for a failed marriage. He was always sweet and sincere and friendly. He resembled Christ quite a bit more than Christians today, who reflect the Pharisees more often than not.

“If I could love something as much as Ned loves everything...”

“You wouldn’t be such a bitch.”

“And you wouldn’t be such a slut.”

One of the main parts of the film is that Ned is trying to get his dog, Willie Nelson, back from his ex-girlfriend. We see how much love puts out into the world, even with this dog, who is his best friend. I am probably a sucker for animal lovers, being one myself, but there is truth still in the idea that loving something can make you a better person.

Comedy as a plot is described as a series of misunderstandings that are eventually resolved and any dark figures are either brought into the light or eliminated, which describes Our Idiot Brother. Comedy is finding positivity in an inevitably tragic world; like it says in the chapter on The Gospel as Comedy and in John 16:33, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” Life is good and fun and Ned knows that. He has a childlike faith in those around him and he just trusts that their intentions are pure. He doesn’t want to live constantly doubting everyone he talks to and playing games with people, trying to get them to guess what he is really thinking. He wants honesty, which I think the Bible says is important.

It is also increasingly apparent to me that through parable and story, the best lessons are taught. That’s how Jesus operated, and on a regular basis, his stories were kind of funny. His lessons were ironic and unexpected, unsettling and called for. Plus, Paul Rudd kind of looked like Jesus with his beard and long hair.

Now, there is the notion that someone this naïve would not make it as an adult, and while that is true, the film displays this, as in the beginning, Ned gets arrested and in the end, he has grown and learned; but unlike many comedies where only the main character or the dark figure change, everyone undergoes a transformation for the better. Ned may be the character that changes the least.

The first sister he lives with is the oldest, Liz. She is married to a British documentary filmmaker who cheats on her, which Ned ends up revealing. Miranda is the second sister, who is a journalist and tries to get information out of Ned that was told to him in confidence, which he keeps from being published because he is a good guy. His last sister is Natalie, who is in a committed relationship with a woman, but has trouble keeping it in her pants so she cheats with a guy and gets pregnant. When Ned, thinking she had already told her partner about it, ends up letting the cat out of the bag, Natalie’s girlfriend is shocked and upset and breaks up with Natalie. Each of his sisters blames him for the problems that they got themselves into and were just ignoring. What he has brought to the light ends up helping each of them in the long run, and like in the comedy plot, everything ends up better and nearly everyone is happy.

Comedy reveals the silliness of those who take themselves too seriously and expresses truth in ways that more serious films cannot, and I believe that the gospel can be seen this way too. It paints a bigger picture than humans sometimes see and that perspective often shows our ridiculousness.