And then, there’s Michael Clayton himself. At his law firm, he’s known as their “fixer.” He refers to himself as a janitor. To everyone around him, he’s the expert they call whenever they need a messy situation swept under the rug. And as he himself says, he’s not the one you kill, he’s the one you pay. But when we encounter Michael Clayton, he shows us that as much as he may be known as an expert in strong-arming the truth to fit the needs of those who pay him, he knows that the power of the truth itself will always be stronger than he will ever be. When he is called to help a wealthy man after a hit and run accident, he doesn’t even pretend he can cover it up and tells the man to hire a lawyer. When he finds himself facing money problems, he accepts the situation he’s in and gets the money he needs to pay off his debt. And even when his job smoothing out Crowder’s case suddenly takes care of itself, he finds himself unable to just move on, driven to know the truth that someone so obviously wanted to keep hidden, and in the end, compelled to let that truth be known.

In this life, there is a truth. There is a truth about the entire world we inhabit. There is a truth about exactly who each of us are and who we were made to be. So often that truth becomes distorted and twisted and readjusted. But still, that truth is there. It will find us. And if we are so lucky to recognize those moments when it does, the only question we have to answer is: Are we ready to live inside of its freedom?