Light of My Life is a dystopian drama about a father, Caleb, and daughter, Rag/Alex, trying to survive in a world without women after a virus killed them off. Casey Affleck wrote, directed and starred in this film, which he claims that he started writing long before accusations about sexual assault arose. It never came to a theater near me, but even if it had, I try not to pay for films with him in it. When I hear dystopian, I am there and was eager to watch it at home. I was not too excited because it is his sophomore filmmaking attempt after I’m Still Here, which I hated.
While Light of My Life is a well-acted, slow burn, character study about the perils of parenting in a nightmarish world, i.e. balancing being protective with making a decent human being, it did a better job of reminding me of other movies than being memorable in its own right. It is currently streaming on Amazon Prime, and it helps to know the story ahead of time to appreciate the performances, but it may be hard to give it your undivided attention at home, especially if it is not pitch black, when the deliberative pace and simple yet familiar dialogue between parent and child can lull one into a meditative trance that leads to zoning out, not attentiveness.
If Leave No Trace met The Road with a dash of High Life and a healthy scoop of Stephen and Owen King’s Sleeping Beauties: A Novel, you would walk away with Light of My Life. I believe that Affleck was not deliberately imitating these works. We drink from the same stream, and each work has different lessons. As much as I love a dystopian setting, I recall feeling similarly about The Road fully anticipating that the parent and child would face dangers depicted in the film, including but not exclusively the favorite savory dish of dystopian denizens. What did The Road copy or pay homage to that it felt so familiar to someone who devoured movies and television about post-apocalyptic life? As a result, The Road and Affleck’s second film was underwhelming, not nearly as gut wrenching as I expected.
Maybe the ideal viewer of these types of films needs to be a parent. The perils in dystopian films are not much worse than the hazards children face today. Ask girls and women like Elizabeth Smart and Jaycee Dugard which is more terrifying: their lives or this movie? They could not even point to an apocalyptic event to blame their tribulations on just regular, quotidian degenerates.
Light of My Life’s implicit threat, though never depicted (thank God), is men do not think of the father and daughter as people, but the father as an inconvenient obstacle and the daughter as a consumable object to steal and use so the parent and child can never just live. The film does a solid job of emphasizing with the father’s dread about keeping his daughter safe. Without his daughter, the father would definitely not have to live a nomadic life, constantly in jeopardy and suspicious, at the edges of civilization and exposed to the elements. The movie shows a gradual shift in the burden of this knowledge from the father to the child. He has borne this burden because of a change in the world and an accident of probability, but she will have to bear it all her life. The movie is basically the cinematic explanation why girls are occasionally described as harder to raise than boys—it is not the girl, but how they are seen by others who do not see them as people. Her existence means that she is always in danger. If he thinks its rough, try being her. She wants to connect with others and socialize, but is prevented because while precious, is not treated as such.
Ever since Will Smith’s Concussion, I have explicitly given side eye to films that use a black character to explicitly express bias. While all the men trying to abduct the daughter appear to be white, it is the black man at a supply store who verbalizes the sexist and racist buttons, which acts as a teachable moment between father and daughter in a church under the watchful eye of Christ on a cross, which worked better in The Walking Dead. There are a lot of Biblical references throughout Light of My Life, but they never quite work. The father’s name is Caleb. He references Noah’s Ark at the beginning of the film. When a host offers them hospitality, the father hears him reading from Ezekiel 45:15. The host quotes John 21: 12, which may be my new favorite Jesus quote of all time, “Come and have breakfast.” I usually get excited with how the reference ties into the overall story, but it did not work for me. The latter two are about times of restoration and resurrection after a cataclysmic event, exile in Babylon or the execution and resurrection of the Son of God. I am sorry, but I did not see Alex/Rag as even a seed of hope, just a little girl with too much at stake. Unless her father is an epidemiologist, we do not know if she is immune to a virus, the tales of other women could just be wishful thinking, and her existence is not looking too good regardless of how scrappy and clever she is.
Light of My Life is filled with stories, but I felt as if the father was telling them to himself more than her, which if it was the point, Affleck succeeds. He believes in the fiction of careful and safe, which is common among parents whereas Rag/Alex was gradually learning that it did not matter how many things they did right, they could still die. I was more concerned that something bad would happen, and she would believe it was her fault when it was the entire world went crazy. Meanwhile the father was trying to hold on to the idea that there was a way to survive while reality proved otherwise. At some point in the film, regardless of age or relationship, she becomes the parent reassuring her dad that everything will be alright but knowing that it absolutely will not be. The scenes when she is silent speaks volumes in contrast to earlier scenes when she is incessantly yapping and being defiant like an ordinary kid. We are watching her leave childhood. It is a great performance as we see her separated in maturity from her father based on a knowledge gap and gender differences.
The characters in Light of My Life that are supposed to be good and reassuring actually made me suspicious. If a person quotes the Bible, I am not going to automatically believe that person is “good.” While I am a Christian who occasionally drinks alcohol, I was suspicious that he offered hard liquor to the father and thought he was trying to get Caleb drunk. I was wrong, but it is interesting that Affleck’s depiction of an encouraging character may also color what he deems appropriate behavior in certain contexts.
Dumb question: how is it obvious to everyone that the child is a girl? I remember watching Moonlight puzzled that everyone could tell that a kid was gay just by existing. When I was a kid, I remember seeing masculine looking girls with short hairstyles and was absolutely uncertain of gender although the kid seemed like a girl. Am I the only clueless viewer? Is it obvious?
Light of My Life is streaming on Amazon. If you are into dystopian dramas, Affleck or kids who can act, this one is for you. It holds up a little better with repeated viewings, but do not be surprised if you find yourself less than riveted. Thespian Elizabeth Moss makes a brief appearance in flashbacks.
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While I can totally buy that anyone would sell them out, Calvin would additionally have to be dumb and/or kind of hate his roommates to invite violent men into his home. I understand that we are only seeing the film from the father and child’s point of view, but the everyone else is dangerous and on the edges of our lives mise en scene did not always work for me, especially when they spent time with these men. Calvin needs an extra animus. Also when there is a threat, people usually get tunnel vision so while I enjoyed the realistic choreography and chaos of the denouement, it felt more stylistic than having the same emotional power as the still scenes.
