A Clue That Your Life is Pretty Good

I was grocery shopping in Wal-Mart a few days ago and walked past a bin of movies that were only $4. I saw the movie The Firm in the bin. I hadn't seen that film since it came out in 1993, when I had no thought of going to law school. I remembered Gene Hackman and Wilford Brimley being pretty good in it. I picked up the DVD case and saw that the movie was directed by Sydney Pollack, one of my favorite actors and film critics, though not necessarily one of my favorite directors. These facts, combined with my desire to watch the film again from the perspective of 16 years later and now that I am in law school, proved too tempting to resist. So I forked over the four dollars.

Gene Hackman, Wilford Brimley, Gary Busey and Jeanne Tripplehorn's performances stood out to me as better than I remembered, though overall the movie was not as good as I thought it was the first time I saw it.

Tom Cruise's character, "Mitch," is graduating in the top 5 in his class from Harvard Law School. His "On Campus Interview" experience is somewhat different than the one students experienced this fall at Florida State and in this economy. The big firms are all begging for him to come join them. He's wined and dined by a firm in Memphis, and the audience hears why Mitch became a lawyer, in contrast to why Gene Hackman's character became one. Hollywood tries to glitz up the life that a lawyer leads (before everything turns sour in the story).

After watching the movie though, I thought, "You know, even before everything went bad, there is not a single character in this movie whose life I would want." On the whole, my life is better than what they portray in this movie. The students, professors and lawyers I've met at Florida State Law in real life are more interesting characters than the lawyers in this movie. The dialogue I hear in law school is wittier and more intelligent than in the movie. And frankly, the women at law school socials are more beautiful than the women at the parties in this movie.

Maybe it's because I'm at Florida State Law. Maybe it's because a lot of life is what you make of it. Anyway, I'd rather wake up in the morning as Nathan Marshburn than as Tom Cruise's "Mitch."

When your life is better than the movies, that's a clue that things are going pretty well for you. I'm trying to appreciate this. Hopefully, it will last.

Universal Health Care Now,

Nathan Marshburn