"You can't buy forgiveness. It's free, but you have to ask for it."

In Get Low, the issue of forgiveness comes up early in the film, then settles into the undercurrent. We're not sure what needs to be forgiven—if anything at all. But as the story plays out, it becomes more and more evident that this is a story about forgiveness.

Felix Bush has been a hermit for forty years. He is the crazy guy that all the kids in town have heard stories about. They break his windows on dares, and if they get caught they fear for their lives—for those are the stories that are told about this man who no one really knows.

After a brush with mortality, Felix heads into town to make arrangements for a "funeral party" for himself. The twist is that he wants to be there for it. Frank Quinn, who owns the struggling funeral home, is willing to help him with this because he really needs the business.

Felix wants to hear the stories people will tell about him. Every time he encounters someone, he wants them to tell him one of the stories. No one ever really seems to know a story with any details—just broad, general stories of how mean he is or how crazy. We too are in the dark about who Felix is. All we see is the rough exterior of a solitary man with unkempt hair and beard. Once he cleans up, people begin to relate to him a bit differently.

There are two people from his past that know him better than everyone else. Mattie, an old flame, has returned to town after a long absence. Is there still a spark between them? Was there ever a spark between them? And then there is the Rev. Charlie Jackson, a black pastor whom Felix searches out to speak about his life at the funeral party. But Charlie refuses. It turns out he knows more about Felix than anyone else alive and until Felix comes clean about his past, Charlie won't help him—can't help him.

It is in the discussions with Charlie that forgiveness returns to prominence in the story. There is something in Felix's past that he holds on to. He says that he has been in his own prison for forty years. We begin to see he has not withdrawn from the world because he dislikes people, rather because he is punishing himself for some past sin. He has tried to do penance—he built Charlie a beautiful church, a place where God has been able to do wonderful things—but that doesn't bring forgiveness. It can only be through confession that he will be able to let go of the sin that has weighed him down all these years.

At the heart of Felix's problem is that he will not forgive himself for what happened. He has held in the truth and guilt for all these years. The funeral party may be his only chance to unburden himself before he dies. He has made all the preparations for the death he feels is coming, except to let loose of the guilt that he has carried for so long.

There is a very existential quality to Felix's struggle. He takes his guilt seriously. He is not willing to accept the cheap grace of forgiving himself easily. But that also stands in the way of any other forgiveness—human or divine—that would help to unburden him as he approaches death.

Forgiveness and grace are always a struggle. As Felix is told early on, it's free, but it must be asked for. It only comes by being open to it. As Felix prepares for what he sees coming, it is this struggle to open himself to grace that is even more difficult than bearing the weight of his past.