Derailed
—1. Overview (multimedia)
—2. Overview Basic (dial up speed)
—3. Reviews and Blogs
—4. Cast and Crew
—5. Photo Pages
—6. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—7. Posters(Clive Owen)
—8. Production Notes (pdf)
—9. Spiritual Connections
—10. Presentation Downloads
Life can be a slippery slope. Yes, it is cliché. We have heard it all our lives from our mothers, our fathers, and countless other elders. But, unfortunately for us, it is true. Gray areas are gray for a reason. When we feel like we are standing on the edge of cliff or walking dangerously close to the line, we feel like that for a reason. And, while we may wish to believe that we would never cross whatever lines we have drawn for our lives, it is difficult to ignore the fact that sometimes we find ourselves dangerously close and even over those lines and all we can do is look back at each step we took to get there.
In the movie Derailed, we see this slip down the slope, fall off a cliff, and tumble over many lines. As the movie’s tagline indicates, “they never saw it coming.� As the first few lines of the movie tell us, “the morning it all began began like any other morning…� But, unfortunately for the characters of Derailed, “it� happened. And while they never expected it, planned on it, or imagined it, their lives quickly went from one side of the line to very much on the other.
“The morning it all began began like any other morning,� but then a married man met a married woman and he talked to her and they hit it off and then he could not stop thinking about her and he called her up and they met for dinner and they called home to say they would be late and they went for drinks and they flirted and they kissed and they went to a hotel…and then they met a man—a man who knew exactly what they were doing, a man who knew exactly what he was doing, and a man who was not afraid to use guilt and fear to get whatever he wanted.
Ad exec Charles Schine and financial advisor Lucinda Harris were not expecting what happened to them. In their eyes, they were not doing anything horribly wrong. Their time together would be a welcome escape from normalcy. They could have fun for just one night, maybe a few, but still be able to easily return to their own lives as a loving wife/mother and husband/father. But then slightly wrong turned into very wrong, minor guilt was magnified into extreme guilt, and their lives were derailed in an instant.
From the moment Schine and Harris are caught in their act of infidelity, guilt fills them both. Add to that additional suffering and threats imposed upon Harris, threats directed at Schine’s family, and the murder of a friend who tries to help, and Schine is filled with so much guilt that each new threat only pushes him further and further off a cliff he vowed he would never even venture near.
In the beginning of the movie, Schine is your everyday family man. He rides the train to work, he comes home, and he takes care of his family. By the end, however, he is an adulterer, an embezzler, and a killer. He did not set out to be any of these; all he wanted was a break from life. The problem is that a group of criminals once listened to their mothers’ tell them that this life is slippery slope. Then they figured out a very tempting first step to get Schine to fall down that slope, pick up every possible piece of guilt along the way, and try to find his way back across the line by paying them.
Some people will identify with Schine and some will not. Some will wonder if they would have been “man� enough to do what he “needed� to do. Others may sit by and curse Schine for just getting deeper and deeper in when he could have had a much easier out all along. The things is, when it comes to that first hook, that first almost innocent action that leads to the next and then the next and then the next, we all have at least one thing that could easily set us on a path just as destructive as Schine’s. It may be a woman’s leg. It may be a man’s arms. It may be that little bit of extra money. It may be that extra feeling of security. It could be anything, anything that would just make us feel better for one short moment, anything that would let us escape our world for just one day, one afternoon, one night or maybe two.
As we see in the movie, the cycle from that first action to that last is vicious. First it is just desire, a brief attempt to escape something else. But then there is guilt. From guilt there is desire to make up for it. Too often, trying to make up for it just leads to crossing even more lines, leads to more guilt, leads to a life even further from the one you were supposed to be leading…and then all you can think about is how you will ever get back across any line that has ever existed in your life.
Every day, all of us encounter tiny things that can throw us off course. The good news is, if we actually pay attention, we can choose to not only avoid crossing the lines we see as uncrossable, but also to avoid letting ourselves get so close that crossing them is almost easier than staying on the right side. Sometimes we will find ourselves beginning to slide down the slippery slopes of life. All of us, no matter how hard we try. But lucky for us, we don’t have to keep falling, we don’t need to keep jumping over lines, and we certainly don’t have to allow our lives to be controlled by guilt and those who will not hesitate to wield it over us.
This life is difficult. It is impossible to always do the right thing and never take a wrong step. Guilt is almost as second nature as our desire for happiness and fulfillment. Thankfully, life’s temptations and the guilt our missteps can pile upon us need not define our lives. Unlike Schine, we can choose to confess whatever gives us guilt instead of letting it control us and lead us further and further into a life defined by it.
Thanks to a God who knows how much guilt can derail any life, we have the promise of forgiveness, restoration, and freedom from even the worst derailments we may face. We don’t have to pay Him millions of dollars. We don’t have to do whatever it takes to make what we’ve done go away. All we have to do is admit what we’ve done and ask God to forgive us and help us to get back on track.
—1. Overview (multimedia)
—2. Overview Basic (dial up speed)
—3. Reviews and Blogs
—4. Cast and Crew
—5. Photo Pages
—6. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—7. Posters(Clive Owen)
—8. Production Notes (pdf)
—9. Spiritual Connections
—10. Presentation Downloads
—2. Overview Basic (dial up speed)
—3. Reviews and Blogs
—4. Cast and Crew
—5. Photo Pages
—6. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—7. Posters(Clive Owen)
—8. Production Notes (pdf)
—9. Spiritual Connections
—10. Presentation Downloads
Life can be a slippery slope. Yes, it is cliché. We have heard it all our lives from our mothers, our fathers, and countless other elders. But, unfortunately for us, it is true. Gray areas are gray for a reason. When we feel like we are standing on the edge of cliff or walking dangerously close to the line, we feel like that for a reason. And, while we may wish to believe that we would never cross whatever lines we have drawn for our lives, it is difficult to ignore the fact that sometimes we find ourselves dangerously close and even over those lines and all we can do is look back at each step we took to get there.In the movie Derailed, we see this slip down the slope, fall off a cliff, and tumble over many lines. As the movie’s tagline indicates, “they never saw it coming.� As the first few lines of the movie tell us, “the morning it all began began like any other morning…� But, unfortunately for the characters of Derailed, “it� happened. And while they never expected it, planned on it, or imagined it, their lives quickly went from one side of the line to very much on the other.
“The morning it all began began like any other morning,� but then a married man met a married woman and he talked to her and they hit it off and then he could not stop thinking about her and he called her up and they met for dinner and they called home to say they would be late and they went for drinks and they flirted and they kissed and they went to a hotel…and then they met a man—a man who knew exactly what they were doing, a man who knew exactly what he was doing, and a man who was not afraid to use guilt and fear to get whatever he wanted.
Ad exec Charles Schine and financial advisor Lucinda Harris were not expecting what happened to them. In their eyes, they were not doing anything horribly wrong. Their time together would be a welcome escape from normalcy. They could have fun for just one night, maybe a few, but still be able to easily return to their own lives as a loving wife/mother and husband/father. But then slightly wrong turned into very wrong, minor guilt was magnified into extreme guilt, and their lives were derailed in an instant.
From the moment Schine and Harris are caught in their act of infidelity, guilt fills them both. Add to that additional suffering and threats imposed upon Harris, threats directed at Schine’s family, and the murder of a friend who tries to help, and Schine is filled with so much guilt that each new threat only pushes him further and further off a cliff he vowed he would never even venture near.
In the beginning of the movie, Schine is your everyday family man. He rides the train to work, he comes home, and he takes care of his family. By the end, however, he is an adulterer, an embezzler, and a killer. He did not set out to be any of these; all he wanted was a break from life. The problem is that a group of criminals once listened to their mothers’ tell them that this life is slippery slope. Then they figured out a very tempting first step to get Schine to fall down that slope, pick up every possible piece of guilt along the way, and try to find his way back across the line by paying them.
Some people will identify with Schine and some will not. Some will wonder if they would have been “man� enough to do what he “needed� to do. Others may sit by and curse Schine for just getting deeper and deeper in when he could have had a much easier out all along. The things is, when it comes to that first hook, that first almost innocent action that leads to the next and then the next and then the next, we all have at least one thing that could easily set us on a path just as destructive as Schine’s. It may be a woman’s leg. It may be a man’s arms. It may be that little bit of extra money. It may be that extra feeling of security. It could be anything, anything that would just make us feel better for one short moment, anything that would let us escape our world for just one day, one afternoon, one night or maybe two.
As we see in the movie, the cycle from that first action to that last is vicious. First it is just desire, a brief attempt to escape something else. But then there is guilt. From guilt there is desire to make up for it. Too often, trying to make up for it just leads to crossing even more lines, leads to more guilt, leads to a life even further from the one you were supposed to be leading…and then all you can think about is how you will ever get back across any line that has ever existed in your life.
Every day, all of us encounter tiny things that can throw us off course. The good news is, if we actually pay attention, we can choose to not only avoid crossing the lines we see as uncrossable, but also to avoid letting ourselves get so close that crossing them is almost easier than staying on the right side. Sometimes we will find ourselves beginning to slide down the slippery slopes of life. All of us, no matter how hard we try. But lucky for us, we don’t have to keep falling, we don’t need to keep jumping over lines, and we certainly don’t have to allow our lives to be controlled by guilt and those who will not hesitate to wield it over us.
This life is difficult. It is impossible to always do the right thing and never take a wrong step. Guilt is almost as second nature as our desire for happiness and fulfillment. Thankfully, life’s temptations and the guilt our missteps can pile upon us need not define our lives. Unlike Schine, we can choose to confess whatever gives us guilt instead of letting it control us and lead us further and further into a life defined by it.
Thanks to a God who knows how much guilt can derail any life, we have the promise of forgiveness, restoration, and freedom from even the worst derailments we may face. We don’t have to pay Him millions of dollars. We don’t have to do whatever it takes to make what we’ve done go away. All we have to do is admit what we’ve done and ask God to forgive us and help us to get back on track.
—1. Overview (multimedia)
—2. Overview Basic (dial up speed)
—3. Reviews and Blogs
—4. Cast and Crew
—5. Photo Pages
—6. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—7. Posters(Clive Owen)
—8. Production Notes (pdf)
—9. Spiritual Connections
—10. Presentation Downloads
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