Intimacy and "All Good Things"

Recently, as my roommates and I were trying to decide on a movie to rent for our weekly movie night, we ran across a movie entitled "All Good Things". The movie was inspired by a true event, and this particular aspect, as well as the fact that Ryan Gosling was the lead actor, led us to rent it.

The movie is inspired by the life of Millionaire Robert Durst , and the mystery surrounding the disappearance of his wife, Kathleen Durst, the suspicious murder of his friend Susan Berman and his involvement with the death of his neighbor, Morris Black. The movie alludes to how these events might have happened and the guiltiness of Mr. Durst. Nevertheless, in real life Mr. Durst was never found guilty for anything, and was acquitted from the potential murder accusations regarding his neighbor, being let off on the basis of self defense.

After watching the movie, I was left with a clear image of how deceitful relationships can be, and how easily we are lead to believe lies about others and ourselves, blinded from the truth and then hurt by the very truth we had been avoiding. The relationship between the main characters, which in the movie are portrayed as David and Katie Marks, is one full of deceit, lies, false images, and a harsh realization of the truth.
This fact directed me back to our previous class discussion in which we mentioned the relational and intimacy rupture that occurred when sin came between, not only humans’ and God, but between man and woman. The divide that sin caused between this later relationship, that was created to portray the perfect image of the God Head relation, produced a crack between the intimacy that was supposed to be found in all three aspects: physical, emotional, and spiritual.
Sin came to deceive and create shame, turn perfection into imperfection, and distort the image we have about each other. In the movie David Marks (Ryan Gosling) sums this idea up in a conversation with his wife: “You make me out to be this person that you think that I am. I’m not this person!”

Man is still blinded by this sin and is lead to believe that the original pattern never changed, and that man and woman can create a perfect relationship and can create deep and balanced intimacy within all three aspects, without a fail. Even Christians are lead to believe this very same lie, as they think that God will restore all this once they enter into the union of marriage. Nevertheless, they forget that if God cannot restore the intimacy between us and Himself while on this earth, due to the presence of sin, then He cannot do the same thing within the man and woman relation because of sin. Until sin is completely removed from the equation, a perfect intimacy will never take place.



If you take a look at the movie trailer you will understand the constant lies that this couple was lead to believe about each other, and where their beliefs led them. At one point in the movie and the trailer, Katie Marks (Kirsten Dunst) states the following: “I’ve never been closer to any one and I don’t know you at all.” That sums up the results of this broken intimacy that cannot be perfectly restored; we can always strive, but never fully achieve it. But an awareness of a truthful constant investment that we must have in all the three aspects of intimacy (Physical, Emotional and Spiritual), within a marriage relationship, will prevent us from living a life full of lies and un-fulfillment.