"This is a story that explores themes that people will be familiar with," says Norton. "We all have friendships that are based on past history but perhaps have lost a strong connection in the present. Sometimes you sit down with someone you have known for a long time and think, 'If I met you now, we would not be friends.' But history between you binds you. The script explores the way that friendships can devolve, cruising on past history despite resentments that have grown and not been expressed and the way that people can diverge without acknowledging it."

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
--DALE CARNEGIE (1888–1955)

You can hardly make a friend in a year, but you can lose one in an hour.
--CHINESE PROVERB

When there are friends, there is wealth.
--LATIN PROVERB

What sweetness is left in life if you take away friendship? Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun.
--CICERO (106–43 B.C.)

What is love? two souls and one flesh.
Friendship? two bodies and one soul.
--JOSEPH ROUX (1834–1886)

BIBLICAL CONNECTIONS
THE CHOICES WE MAKE
and THE HUMAN CONDITION

"You can't judge the potential of a film or a character based on whether someone in it is making choices that you wouldn't make in your own life, otherwise you would never play anything," says Edward Norton.

"Monty is a drug dealer, but he is not necessarily a bad person," says Norton. "He and his friends and his family have complicated, mixed feelings about each other and about the choices he's made. To me, the script felt like real life, which is rare."

Romans 7:14-25 -Message Translation
From the writtings of Paul:

"The law is good, then. The trouble is not with the law but with me, because I am sold into slavery, with sin as my master. I don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience shows that I agree that the law is good. But I can't help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things.

"I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can't make myself do right. I want to, but I can't. When I want to do good, I don't. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. But if I am doing what I don't want to do, I am not really the one doing it; the sin within me is doing it.

"It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God's law with all my heart. But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin."

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