THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 28, 1996 TAG: 9601260194
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editor
SOURCE: Kevin Armstrong
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
``Be ready for some tears,'' the woman behind the counter said.
``Yeah, I know,'' I responded. ``I've seen it before. In fact, I think it was the best movie of the year.''
Disbelief suddenly crept across her face.
``Really?'' she said, snatching up my video selection and simultaneously sizing me up.
``Yeah, my wife didn't really want me to get this,'' I said, handing the clerk a $5 bill. ``It's not her kind of movie. But it is mine.''
``Huh. That's strange,'' the clerk said. ``Usually it's girls who like this stuff - not guys!''
``Yeah, I know,'' I said, grabbing my change and heading out the door.
The movie didn't fare any better among Hollywood's critics. No Golden Globes were awarded its cast last week, and nobody associated with the film is making room for Oscar.
But then this is far from entertainment. It's about vexing your soul and taxing your mind in ways few motion pictures can.
The movie is ``Losing Isaiah.''
Although it stars Jessica Lange, she delivered the performance but not the critical acclaim its producers had desired.
It's a shame more viewers didn't dare to take up the Solomonic challenge that the movie offered.
Its difficulty lies in the irony that while it is indeed a black and white issue its answer is not.
The movie explores the dilemma posed by a white social worker who adopts a black crack baby, whose mother abandoned him in a trash dumpster only to awake from a drug-induced sleep and find him gone.
Haunted by the nightmare of her horrific act, the young black mother is driven to clean up her life, unaware that her baby is alive.
Not until almost four years later does she learn the truth about Isaiah.
She wastes no time, however, in finding the child and hiring a lawyer to get him back.
The white family who has adopted him refuses to let go.
What follows is a gut-wrenching tale of two mothers laying claim to ``my son.''
The 4-year-old boy becomes the innocent victim in the middle, struggling to hold onto all he's ever known, not concerned about what he doesn't know.
Like so many issues in our society today, this matter is left for the courts to decide.
The judge's verdict in this case is yours to discover. I won't steal the show.
What makes this movie so powerful, though, is that in the end the real solution isn't found in any courtroom.
In our increasingly litigious society, we have, like the movie's messed-up mother, become obsessed with finding quick fixes. We too often turn to the courthouse to solve our problems before we have tried to address them ourselves.
We are not all combatants in this world, although we sometimes act like it.
And our intellectual muscles have grown flabby like the pectorals on a couch potato. It's time we began flexing them again instead of hiring someone else to do it for us.
Real solutions to tough problems take hard work.
Complex issues, be they custody disputes or racial struggles, are best solved when the two warring parties work together in the end.
That doesn't happen easily or overnight.
And, like the clerk's warning to me, you might even ``be ready for some tears.'' by CNB