The Prodigal Father

MPAA Rating: PG-13
Reel Rating: 4 out of 5 reels

Forgiveness is the central to Christianity, in both word and deed. To forgive is also one of the hardest things to do, especially when the crime is grave, prolonged, and–worst of all–familial.

Tarrell (André Holland), understands this all too well, living most of his childhood under the thumb of his abusive, drug-addicted father La’Ron (John Jelks). Fortunately, he found an outlet as a painter, and–unlike most in his profession–achieved great success. Gone for years, his father suddenly comes crashing back into his life, claiming to be a changed man. Tarrell isn’t so sure.

Tarrell lives every struggling artist’s dream. Coming from poverty, he was “discovered” in his twenties as the archetype of an African-American experience. His paintings are admittedly very good: dynamic, unique, and moving–a fresh combination of classic skill and symbolic sensibility often lacking in postmodern art. His wife is a musician, while his son is fun and respectful.

Yet all this success only masks the chaos underneath as he often wakes in the middle of the night in full panic mode. This stems from the horrific neglect and abuse he experienced at the hands of his father, who would often make Tarrell work hours and hours of hard labor to pay for La’Ron’s drug habit.

Suddenly La’Ron appears again and says he is sober and ready for a renewed relationship. Tarrell’s mother Joyce (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) accepts him instantly. “You still love him?” Tarrell asks in exasperation. “Yes,” she asserts. Tarrell tacitly agrees to meet with him, but these encounters often end in frustration. Both men have a journe, but in opposite directions.

Tarrell was raised with a strong Biblical worldview which his mother still holds and even his father seems to have not abandoned. When La’Ron becomes sober, he gives God the credit for his change. Joyce doesn’t hesitant to welcome him back after years of abuse and neglect because Christians “have a duty to forgive.” Tarrell doesn’t seem especially religious, but that spiritual effect is still within him. He justifies his lack of engagement with Scripture, matching his mother verse for verse.

Here lies the genius of the film. It would be easy on the one hand to villainize Tarrell as stubborn and unmerciful towards his father or demonize La’Ron as disingenuous and unrealistic in his desire for a relationship. Like his father, Tarrell gets frustrated and angry, but his outlet is art rather than drugs. This simple choice has led to widely divergent lives.

In the first scene, the audience is invited to sympathize with La’Ron as he is brutally beaten while attempting to intervene in a robbery. However, a later flashback shows Tarrell as a boy stepping on a nail, which goes right through his foot while working for his father. La’Ron won’t take him to the hospital because he might get into trouble. Instead, he wraps a sock around it and demands his son stop crying and start working.

Jesus does command us to forgive, but the specifies are left to discernment. La’Ron does acknowledge his sins and appears to have genuinely reformed, but he never actually says the words “I am sorry” or “Please forgive me.” Instead, he assumes reformation means automatic reintegration. Terrall wisely keeps him at arm’s length; he has a wife and young son to consider, in addition to his own dignity.

Sorrow for one’s sins is a good beginning, but contrition, amendment, and penance are also essential in the forgiveness process. In the last scene, Tarrell doesn’t technically forgive La’Ron or let him back into his life, but he does say that he will pray for him and–more profoundly–pray that his own heart will soften enough to forgive his father. Perhaps it is not the nice ending many viewers expect or prefer, but there is hope for the future, including Tarrell’s first admission of his need for God.

I was fortunate to have a brief interview with the film’s writer and director Titus Kapler. This was his first feature film after two decades as a prominent painter and sculptor. He designed “every shot to be framed like a painting” and created all of Tarrell’s artworks. He shapes a dreamlike narrative in which the audience goes in and out of the canvas while the plot frequently moves backward and forward in time.

There are so, so many souls broken by the indulgence of this world. Forgiveness is an active choice to stop evil from spreading and to leave judgement to God. This is so vital for salvation that Christ warns we must “forgive others their trespasses” if we are “to be forgiven ours.” If this is difficult, remember that Jesus first forgave. His body on the Cross, bloodied and broken for us, is the greatest artistic expression of God’s love the world has ever known.