Review of Blow (2001) by Fadeblack — 19 Feb 2013

On one hand, Blow is a interesting film about the drug industry with solid performances and a fairly entertaining plot surprisingly enough, based on real events.

But beneath the surface, it is also holds a strikingly important message about the things in life that seem important, the desires that most people pursue...and how at the end, no matter how successful they are in attaining them, it means nothing if they consume one's life.

The film has a variety of different characters, but the only real morally decent guy is George's father (Ray Liotta).

At the beginning of the film, he tells his young son something very important: "Money isn't real, George. It doesn't matter. It only seems like it does.".

It is a message that seems to register with the young George somewhere deep down, yet he spends his entire adult life running in the opposite direction as far as he can. The adult George (Johnny Depp) starts of relatively small he gets into the weed business to make a little bit of money, enough to live on and step by step, bit by bit, he edges himself onto bigger and bigger deals, gets busted and goes to prison, moves on to cocaine, dealing with killers, putting himself in great risk money becomes everything that his life revolved around.

I am sure that somewhere in his mind he might have rationalized it, convinced himself in some philosophy that made his lifestyle ok yet it the end, all it brought him was ruin. The exact same thing happens with his wife Mirtha (Penelope Cruz). The young George is distances by how selfish and greedy his mother (Rachel Griffiths) is, and he can barely give her a hug on Christmas day. She openly admits she married George's father for money that she believed he had, only to find out that he had little. She is someone the young George doesn't want anything to do with yet he marries the exact same woman in Mirtha.

At first, it is all sexy and exciting how George and Mirtha meet, how beautiful and classy she looks, how into him she is he thinks he has hit the jackpot and found the perfect woman. A match made in heaven until the money troubles come in and after years of marriage she reveals that all she really cares about is the fame and fortune that came with marrying George. Again, he must have rationalized it in his mind told himself she is not like his mother, that she is different, that they can make it work all delusions we force ourselves to believe because we cannot break free from the chains of the physical and the material. "Money isn't real, George. It doesn't matter. It only seems like it does." if only George had followed that advice, he would not have ended up an old broken down man in a prison dreaming of his daughter that never visits him. At the end, despite of all his mistakes, you can't help but feel truly sorry for George. No matter how much he allowed himself to be led astray, the one thing he cared about the most was his daughter.

Of course, George's story is an extreme example of a cautionary tale. Many other people in society go on the same path but keep their riches seemingly for life, and establish successful families and relationships that are with them 'till the end. But as materially successful as that may seem, how much of an achievement is it, really? How much honor is there to get ahead in a fundamentally unjust and unfair world? Who is the real winner someone who plays the game and wins, or someone who refuses to play at all and transcends the material and the physical living humbly and within his means?

George's father, although no human is perfect, seemed to have the most peace at the end. And we can leave it at that.

A movie definitely worth seeing.