MICHAEL CLAYTON, REDEMPTION AND THE SOUL’S PRICE TAG
We are told that life is compromise. One big grey area. But some of it isn’t. Some of it is binary. Black and white. Right and wrong.
In the movie MICHAEL CLAYTON everything has a price:
A gambling debt the hero owes to a mafia loan shark: $70,000.
The interior contents of his failed restaurant venture on auction day: $40,000.
A class-action law suit settlement against a vast and corrupt corporation: $750,000,000.
But what is really on sale and pending an offer is Michael Clayton’s soul.
The price offered: $10,000,000. Who could turn that down? Let’s find out. Dark in color, mood and outraged worldview, the film speaks to the way we live now; a story about ethics and their absence, a slow-to-boil requiem for North American decency.
The lead character is a ‘fixer’ at a top Manhattan law firm and spends his days bribing, coercing, persuading, pressuring and swaying people as he deals with the firm’s delicate ‘off book’ cases—working in that rarefied zone where the barely legal meets the almost criminal.
He is also given the responsibility of baby-sitting a brilliant but bi-polar senior partner of the firm who chooses to come off his medication and endangers the aforementioned class-action law suit which is about to close. Michael’s nemesis is Karen Crowder, the legal counsel of the corrupt corporation; an utterly ruthless Lady Macbeth in pumps and pearls, she will stop at nothing —even murder— to get her way. She sold her soul long ago.
Michael didn’t start out as a fixer. Once he was a righteous district attorney handling worthy criminal cases. But a failed marriage, an expensive gambling habit, a disastrous venture into the restaurant business— all have left him weary, compromised and at the end of his tether, with any number of personal failures and minor tragedies arranging themselves around his heart.
These past and future frustrations and near-tragedies collide in the present and Michael is presented with a stark choice between a huge sum of money and his dignity, pride, self-esteem, and integrity—indeed, everything his life has ever meant or counted for.
He can either redeem his entire existence or get very rich and make a lot of his material problems instantly go away.
He chooses to keep his soul. He makes up for all his mistakes; and after a lifetime of lousy choices, he’s finally made a good one. Seeing this, we the feel a profound sense of relief. It feels right to us on a gut-deep level. He’s made a hero’s choice.
Perhaps we admire and look up to him because very few souls’ survive life’s journey un-compromised. Maybe we haven’t been presented with the visceral, cathartic choice Michael wrestles with but we’ve all faced difficult ones… and gone the wrong way.
In a past life I worked as a copywriter creating ads for a cigarette client— something I still feel bad about years later. At the time I made an excuse but in reality I had a choice. We always have a choice.
We are told that life is compromise. One big grey area. A balance between being in the moment and careful reflection. Between the excitement of night and the cold light of day. But some of it isn’t. Some of it is binary. Black and white. Right and wrong.
We all have a touch of the hero inside us. A touch of the Michael Clayton’s. Maybe the next time we are faced with a big decision we can channel that side.
Because herein lies the answer to the central question of the film: what is the real worth of a soul?
And the answer is: a soul is priceless.
And it’s completely up to us whether or not we sell ours short.