Faith and Forgiveness at the El Royale

We watched “Bad Times at the El Royale” and it’s been a long time since a movie got me and my husband speculating and discussing so intensely.  Just who is the man caught en flagrante on the hotels video cameras?  Two obvious candidates were part of our initial debates but we quickly added a third after evaluation of the purported date of the movie and some google-research.  We explained the horrible history of Jim Jones and the Jonestown mass suicide to our son.  We googled the start and end dates of the Vietnam War.  We wondered just what crime “Boots” had committed, and just how many charismatic cult leaders there were in the 60’s. We continued to discuss our varied views on the man in the video, supporting our opinions with scenes from the movie.  

But what haunted me was the climactic scene were the faux-priest, Father Daniel Flynn, administers last rights to the dying Miles.  This scene was remarkable to me for diverse reasons:  it’s rare that you see a scene in a modern movie depicting accurately and absent distain, the rites associated with the Christian church; the scene depicted the priest, who had by then been exposed to all as a fraud, giving words of absolution in the name of the Triune God to someone who had repeatedly begged for the rite from the priest.  The fact that the scene was given obvious primacy of place at the end, it demanded more consideration.  I believe that it serves as a counterpoint and to highlight one of the major themes of the move, a theme which might be described as a cry against the abuse of power, particularly religious power.  I’ve tried to avoid reading commentaries on the movie—I prefer the clarity of my own thoughts, thank you—but at least one ropes in the theme of the month, “toxic masculinity.”  But I think “toxic masculinity” is too narrow and too dated a theme.  

The intense speech made by Darlene Sweet, struggling singer and coerced accomplice to the convict-cum-priest, to the frighteningly abusive charismatic Billy Lee is central to the meaning of the movie.  Billy Lee is holding the group captive at gunpoint and is mockingly asking the priest if he showed Darlene the film strips, if the identity of the adulterous man was known to her.  Darlene looks Billy in the face with a squared jaw and stony eyes and tells him she doesn’t need to see it, she knows what it is and who he is because she’s seen it all and heard it all before, these kind of men don’t impress her at all.  “He talks so much he thinks he believes in something, but really he just wants to fuck who he wants to fuck.”

The first layer of meaning is directed at Billy Lee, the oft shirtless cult leader who exudes a fascinatingly repulsive sexuality, undulating like a snake with his harem of brainwashed women.  Darlene directs her contempt toward Billy with palpable venom. The second layer is Darlene’s answer to the question, of course she knows who is on the tape but she has nothing but disgust for men who abuse their power for sex.  A third layer of meaning could be interpreted as directed toward the Roman Catholic priesthood, represented in costume at least by Father Flynn; yet another example of men talking so much, thinking they believe in something but just wanting freedom to fuck.  

But when we hold something in contempt, it generally means that we see it as false and shallow, as a poor substitute for whatever stronger, better reality it is attempting to supplant.  There is a scornful and intentional disrespect in Darlene’s speech:  the men she is talking about have failed, and not only failed but have continued to wear a costume of service and success.  What failures does Darlene see?  She sees Billy Lee failing as a man, instead abusing and manipulating women he should have been protecting; she sees the man on the tape failing to protect people, to really serve them and work for their liberation, but instead only serving himself out of selfish motivations.  

And what about the failure of the church, of the religious establishment, if we can agree that that theme is present?   What was the church failing to do, its mission that it was distracted from?  I would argue the mission of the church—Roman Catholic or otherwise—is to preach the gospel of Christ, that is, the message of the forgiveness of sins.  

In Luke 4:16ff, Jesus is in the temple reading from the book of Isaiah:  “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovering of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  After reading this passage, Jesus declares to those listening “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  Jesus came to proclaim freedom—the forgiveness of sins to all who believe, reconciliation with God.  In John 8: 31ff, Jesus tells His listeners that if they hold to His teachings, they are His disciples and therefore truly free—free from the enslavement of sin through faith in Him.  Colossians describes the work of Christ this way, in 1:13 “For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in Whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

Miles, the quietly agitated and depressed hotel clerk, spends the entire movie in grief and darkness pleading for forgiveness from the apparent priest, Father Flynn.  Burdened by what he has seen and been complicit in at the El Royale, despairing of the death and destruction in which he participated as a sharp-shooter in Vietnam, Miles is the perpetual victim of circumstances, doing the bidding of the hotel owners now and following the orders of his superiors in the past.  He carries the guilt which those above him apparently never felt, never even considered.  And so he pleads with Father Flynn—and later simply with the defrocked and unmasked Dock O’Kelly—to offer him Divine forgiveness, the rite of absolution.  The movie crafts a moment of crisis as Darlene and Dock huddle around the dying Miles, with Dock recognizing the burden of his fraud and reluctant to give the absolution Miles is asking for, and with Darlene fiercely demanding that he do so.  With real words of the real rite of absolution, Dock O’Kelly—dying convict and perpetual conman—forgives the sins of Miles in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Is this just one final con?  Just two people humoring the request of the dying, guilt-ridden Miles?  Is this just more talking and talking so someone can get screwed, Darlene’s impassioned earlier charge?  Or is this the opposite—the saying of real words with real belief, with the true and selfless desire to benefit another human being?  One might say well, Father Flynn didn’t really exist even in the movie, he wasn’t really a priest—this wasn’t real forgiveness, real absolution, it was only a farce, yet again the use of words to abuse the vulnerable.  But one might also say—which I do—that those words of forgiveness do not belong to humanity, are not the proprietary property of mankind.  These words of forgiveness were given by Christ to His Church, true—but they are His words, and therefore words of power.  

In John 20: 21-23, we find Jesus with His disciples:  “Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you!  As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.  And with that He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive, they are not forgiven.””  Words of power to forgive given to the disciples, to those who believe on Christ Jesus.  Words which the Church does wield, forgiving the sins of the penitent and preaching forgiveness to those overwhelmed by guilt. 

Was the absolution offered to Miles effective?  I almost hesitate to say—it’s a movie, after all.  But if this had really happened, I would venture to say that Miles left this life freed from his guilt and sin.  Not because a priest in disguise used some magic words, but because those words were received in faith—faith in the One who is the source of forgiveness.

And what does this say to those of us in power, those who talk and talk as if we believed something but are more interested in making sure our own selfish agendas are met?  Those who use words only to gain power over others, the weak and the vulnerable?  Those who abuse positions of authority, particularly the authority of the Church?  Those who should be offering the hope of forgiveness, the Gospel message of reconciliation to God through Jesus Christ, but instead only talk and talk and talk about other things.  People are hurting, grieving and full of guilt—and the church offers false promises of worldly success, of health and wealth and happiness.  People are craving—even begging for—the forgiveness of sins which the Church and its people can bring to the world….and instead, we give them self-help and a to-do list for self-righteousness.   

Bad Times at the El Royale was about the abuse of power, abuses with temporal and eternal significance. It was about the abuse and victimization of women, of minorities, of any vulnerable person by those placed in positions of power.  It speaks to cult leaders and civil rights activists and politicians and religious leaders. It speaks to anyone with power to withhold good from another, and to our deepest human need for forgiveness and peace.

Photo found here:  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6628394/mediaviewer/rm3438705408