Adam Sandler is an actor with quite a range of talent. He can do zany comedy like The Wedding Singer, or a deep melancholy film like Stand By Me. In his latest masterpiece, Space Man, he is an Czech Astronaut going to space in a station to investigate this nebula like cloud of purple that has appeared near Jupiter for the last four years. On the way, Jakub (Sandler) discovers as stowaway aboard, an extraterrestrial giant Spider who has the power to prob his mind and seeks to help save his marriage with is collapsing. This film is a deep one with major Biblical undertones. Before I unravel those I want to focus first on the simple things.
Jakub grew up in Communist Czechoslovakia, his father was a informant for the Secret Police and died. Jakub believes his exploring this new phenomenon for betterment of mankind is to atone for the sins of his father. This is one of strong Christian messages in the film, the nature of good people wanting to make amends for great evils. We know that only Jesus Christ our Lord has accomplished this, because Martin Luther said in the Doctrine of Total Depravity, we as humans have no concept of what is truly Good, because only God is good, and we in our sin have gone astray, only through Christ, partnering with him can we bear any fruit (do good), "I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5). That said, the desire to offer recompense, to make right something over a wrong is not necessarily a bad thing if it inspires people to not repeat the mistakes of their parents, though it can lead a person on penitential path that leads them away from the Truth, and Love.
The Spider Alien who Jekub names Hanus (pronounced Anu-shhh) becomes a friend, and tries to help him discover that it is his selfishness, his "self inflicted loneliness" that is destroying his marriage, that he fails to see his wife, to know her and instead keeps leaving her on space missions. This is powerful thing to unpack, for Christ says eternal life is "This is eternal life to know God and to know His Son." (John 17:3). In the same way we supposed to know the ones we love, to let them in and to enter them (not sexually only, but emotionally and spiritually), and Jakub realizes he has been selfish, allowing his wife to enter his soul and mend him and make him whole, but he has failed to do the same for her. To love someone requires we not only love them if it makes us joyful and fulfills our needs and desires, this would be selfish love, to love someone is to be like Christ, to make sacrifices and show them they matter so much, that we can be uncomfortable to comfort them, and meet their needs as well.This is powerful part of the Space Man. The realm of space is metaphor for the space between Jakub and his Wife and perhaps the space between us and those we love.
Now we come to revelation of what purple nebula like dust is, Hanus says it is "The Beginning.. that everything that was made is there," this word he keeps using of The Beginning is important, because that is one of God's names, "I Am The Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End." (Revelation 22:13, Isaiah 44:6). Hanus even says this, "This is The Beginning and The End," when they are flying through the purple nebula and they hear every sound ever and see creation and death. I see this as they are meeting God unfiltered, in Transfigured State if you will, If The Almighty revealed himself without having to filter Himself to his Creation or as the Apostle Paul says, "Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely; better trans: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.." (1 Corinthians 13:12). Yes you could interpret some New Age ideals in these scenes of the Universe, but what I found interesting is Hanus who guides Jakub says what all angels say, "Fear not," something even Gabriel said to The Virgin Mary (Luke 1:26). Is Hanus an angel? Why is he a spider then? Well there is a Scripture "whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider’s web." (Job 8:14). Hanus literally says he has come to bring Jakub hope, which really captures this Scripture as Jakub trusts in this spider in many instances to help save him from both a doomed marriage and later doom in the stars.
Perhaps the most powerful message of the movie is that all our great searches and journeys, all our attempts to find a greater purpose or answers out there among the stars is us essentially sabotaging ourselves here, it is to miss what is right in front of us. God put us on this planet, to love Him and one another, and while I do not believe space exploration is an abomination or violation of God's will, using it as means to self inflict ourselves with loneliness, to avoid the answer right here in our midst is a bad thing. For what did Adam and Eve choose over loving God and one another? They choose in the Garden "The Knowledge of Good and Evil." We do the same, we seek it in intellectualism, even religious fanaticism, or quests to the stars like Elon Musk; again these things in their proper spheres and with a right heart are not evil, but when we substitute like Jakub we sabotage our love with God and one another, the journey to the stars, down the well like Alice, or whatever path becomes destructive because it is knowledge that is leading us away from God and who we love. For it is written, "in Jesus is the store houses of knowledge and wisdom" (Colossians 2:2-3). And yet we go elsewhere, we join the Crew of the Prometheus with Peter Weyland and instead of finding more of God, we find the devil, the Xenomorph ready to tear us apart.
Space Man is not a movie to watch if you are expecting a thrill ride or to be dazzled with special effect, though Hanus is well done, he has a life like Spider look and yet such a tender and kind voice that like Charlotte with Wilbur in Charlotte's Web you do not have Arachnophobia. Space Man is a movie that requires you to be introspective, to as the movie posits at one point, "the answer is the silence," now for us Protestants that sounds demonic, but The Lord says, "be still and know that I am God," (Psalm 46:10) and many churches practice Silent Prayer or being Silent. This movie like Hanus will prob your heart, and I believe God will stir you to re-examine your motives in this life, and to perhaps even hear the heartbeat of the movie: "I have this against you, you no longer love me or one another as you first did, go back to what you did at first.." (Revelation 2:4-5 NLT). Jakub literally has this realization in memories of his Wife, that he remembers how much he loved her and how his own sin, his selfishness and self inflicted loneliness has nearly destroyed that love. Do we not perhaps do this to God? Even with religious actions? We bury him in the noise of our piety. The same with the people we love, we drown them out because we want them to fit in certain place in our lives, which is actually to marginalize and caricature them, they are human beings too, and they do not fit neatly in cubical of our lives.
This movie stirred all these thoughts and realizations. I am still feeling the effects, and I believe the author of the book Space Man had Biblical messages purposely placed in this story. That if you listen carefully, you will hear The Lord speaking and perhaps even confronting you as Hanus does Jakub. I believe this movie is the greatest film of the year, for it has a power to ask us the hard questions we try to silence with our own quests(ions). And as always the thing that is the central question is love, do you really love your spouse or just how they can make you fee (its not bad they make you happy, but to love them, you have to be willing to be uncomfortable to comfort them, to be what they need too). Amen.
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