Review of Inherit the Wind (1960) by Barry N — 06 Apr 2011

Inherit the Wind is a very hard film for me to review, but nevertheless I'm going to give it a shot. Let me start out by saying that I am a Christian and believe in God, and watching this was a little too hard to swallow for me. I wasn't particularly thrilled with the way Christians were portrayed in this film. They are played off as ignorant, over-zealous, hypocritical and overtly harsh. Now granted I know that there Christians like that, but I only wish that they had had a decent Christian to make the others balance out.

But even through that aspect, I will admit right out that this is a well made and very well crafted film. The pacing of the film is impeccable, and the acting is spot on. Spencer Tracy steals the show as a lawyer protecting a man for teaching The Theory of Evolution in a public school classroom, and deservedly received a Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards.

Lots of questions are raised in this film, but they are never answered. Sometimes this can work and sometimes it can't. It works okay in this film, but it's not really effective. For example, the film leaves it up to you whether or not believing in Evolution or Creationism is right or wrong. I can live with that, except that throughout most of the film, Evolutionists are portrayed as being smart while Christians are portrayed as being ignorant and judgmental.

I also had a few issues with the historical accuracy of the film. Now granted the play was written during the peak of McCarthyism, so they were obviously trying to make the Scope trial analogous to the crisis's of the time. But seriously, would it have killed them to keep the character's names consistent with their real life counterparts? That may seem like nitpicking, but stuff like that really bugs me sometimes.

Artistically though, the only real big problem that I had with this film was with the ending. It left me feeling emotionally empty and unsatisfied. At the end of the film, nobody learns anything, neither side has actually "won" and a lot of the story plots are left unresolved.

Still, I have to admit, this film really does make you think. It makes you question what you believe and why you believe it, ponders over whether anybody should teach something that they don't believe in, and also wonders if we should teach kids something that they may not believe in. Whether you are an atheist or a Christian, there is one thing that we can agree on. This is a very well crafted and well acted film.