Passing-Thought

Solomon & Solomon - the wisdom of forgiveness in Magnolia

The last time I watched Magnolia, I noticed something else I had not previously noticed: the furniture store Solomon & Solomon represents riches and wisdom. At the beginning of the movie, it's money from his employer that the "stupid" Donnie Smith feels he needs most of all to win the object of his misdirected love. At the end, it's outside Solomon & Solomon that the Quiz Kid adult confesses he lacks wisdom in love: "I have lots of love to give, I just just don't know where to put it."

It's outside Solomon & Solomon that Jim the Cop demonstrates the wisdom of forgiveness in helping Donnie return his stolen money. For the first time in the movie, Jim sits and fully listens to a someone without judging them. "Some people you need to forgive. Some people you need to put in jail. That's the tough part of the job. Who can we forgive?" Governing and executing the Law with wisdom, is not simply a matter of putting people in prison or shooting them.

The movie begins with a kind of angelic merciless justice. The narrated series of "coincidences" at the beginning involve divine judgments all ending in death or imprisonment. The cop's monologue at the beginning of the movie focuses upon man's need to "be good to each other" setting the standard by which the rest of the character's lives are judged or being judged. The cop represents God's Law. But the movie ends, not with simply fatal judgments, but with a dying wish fulfilled, second chances, reconciliation. Redemption. Thus, Jim's character moves from "strict justice" to the wisdom of forgiveness. If Jim can learn the wisdom of forgiveness and not being too quick to judge, than his budding relationship with Claudia (the sinner drug-addict) has hope. And if their relationship can work, the whole world has hope.

Wisdom is one of the main themes of the movie. This becomes most overt when all the characters join in the movie's climatic music video "It's not going to stop, till you wise up". The game show "What do kids know?" play upon the competing relationship between knowledge of adults vs. kids in the context of authority structures. Kids and their knowledge are held hostage to the abuse of adult authorities. Authority asks questions and makes imperatives, kids answer trivia for the sake of cheap adult entertainment (or, in the case of parents, exploiting children for lucrative gain). In the end, Stanley wises-up and realizes that there is an authority that is higher than the oppressive uses of adult authority and education. He begins to ask adults questions. "It's not a dangerous thing to confuse children with angels." After "getting" the divine revelation at the end, Stanley functions as an angelic messenger to warn his father against abusing his authority: "Father, you need to be good to me." Will his father wise-up and see that it is wrong to use his child for fame and fortune? Will he realize that he is not the ultimate authority in his and his son's life? In the end, divine judgment remains penal, but this serves to "Let my people go."