How Movies Transform Us

Let's audit The Accountant

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Disclaimer: There will be spoilers in this book club series. If you really want to fully absorb The Accountant, please watch the movie BEFORE you read this series. It will vastly improve your experience and allow you to recognize some of it’s brilliant timing and placement within the structure of my posts.

I didn’t want to watch this movie. Straight-up action movies, which I thought this was, aren’t my thing. My tastes run more to dark comedies like Pulp Fiction, Fargo, and Gross Point Blank or goofball romantic comedy like 50 First Dates, or Sci Fi like Alien, Fifth Element and Edge of Tomorrow. I like movies that make me think, but action flicks are not at the top of my list, Die Hard and Road Warrior not withstanding. Then, along comes The Accountant. Let me be clear, I don’t like Ben Affleck as a person or as an actor. But, this movie was the only thing my husband liked the looks of when it was his turn to pick a movie on streaming.

Listen up people - it caught me off guard. When the movie ended, I wanted to start it all over again to see what I missed. It changed my world view though I wasn’t conscious of the transformation at the time. I mean a hero with no name, believe me I’ve tried to find it, this hero has NONE. He only goes by aliases. He is so ‘invisible’ that his parents are also unnamed in the movie. He is molded by ancient, possibly prehistoric, practices of immersion therapy, virtually becoming the adage “that which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”. On The Accountant’s Wiki Fandom page, fans (mistakenly) classify the him as an assassin. Our hero, Christian Wolff (played by Ben Affleck) is not an assassin. He has Asperger’s Syndrome and his rigorous, regimented upbringing gave him none of the ‘benefits’ of traditional medical or therapeutic interventions afforded to children with Autism in the late 70’s, when he was born. At that time, the condition was considered ‘childhood schizophrenia’ and had a prevalence of 1/1,000. The therapeutic approach was institutionalization, which Christian’s parents refused. Instead, he took his training knocks and made a life that is at once both criminal and redemptive.

Now answer me this, who among us knows one damned thing about autism that we didn’t learn in the movie Rain Man? Autism has become so prevalent that it’s like gravity - it’s just there around us blending in with our universe. As a matter of fact it’s truly everywhere. In the average American’s neighborhood of ~600 people (2020 US Census data), 17 of your neighbors, has an autistic family member - 1/36. Ponder that. This isn’t a niche, glamour diagnosis. It’s a serious, sometimes disabling inability to relate. EVERYTHING humans do requires us to relate, to interact with intent. Imagine the energy required to learn relationship skills through a practice. To memorize them for future use instead of their naturally emitting from within your brain and spirit. Christian lives behind a mask. He has only his eyes, working through small slits in the mask, and his memory through which to understand the humans around him. The only thing I can compare this foreignness to is my nephew’s described experience with having not one but now 2 deaf daughters. Sign language is a front that stood between his daughter’s language-based communing with him until she got cochlear implants at a year old. Ironically, he’s told me at 4 years old she’s still drawn to those who speak ASL with her. Alas, we have a lot to learn about what’s really going on in the hearts and minds of those with whom we have relationships. Take the time to look inside.

The Accountant was released on Friday, October 14, 2016 to mixed reviews - 73% IMDb, 76% Rotten Tomatoes, 51% Metacritic - but it grossed $150 million worldwide. ABC News wrote this (shitty?!) review of Affleck’s performance. "The Accountant" should dispel any notion that Affleck isn’t a solid actor. To deny that is just pure hating. Don’t hate.” Really?! “solid actor”?! What the hell? That’s like being the girl who’s told by the boy of her dreams that she’s pretty but has a terrible personality, and he takes someone else to the dance (that was my 5th grade kick to the crotch - thanks a lot T.G.) I mean is this a review that ANY actor wants? Put your back into it people.

Onward… Some viewers felt the plot was convoluted. To this I say lock your doors, use the restroom prior, and bring snacks to the couch. For God’s sake, lengthen your attention span from 90 seconds to 90 minutes of your busy life. EVERY second of this movie is important to the experience. NO interruptions. I bought the screenplay for my research, so I know how this was written, what the intentions of screenplay author Bill Dubuque were. EVERY. WORD. EVERY. ACTION. IS. GERMAIN.

And the dichotomous themes - violence, crime, and brutality married with redemption, atonement, and reconciliation. Isolation and loneliness contrasted with love, support, and loyalty. It’s a real goulash of human emotions, all of them strong and unmistakable. How can people be lukewarm about any of this?

Back to the life-altering nature of my experience…Of all the responses I expected to have to The Accountant, yearning wasn’t one of them. This movie made me yearn for something more, something tangible, some heroic effort of mine that leaves an indelible mark on the world when I’m gone. It planted seeds in me that are still flourishing.

Please consider interacting with this series as if we’re meeting in the local library for book club with overpriced coffee drinks and sleepy eyes. I treasure this time, so I won’t miss a meeting and I hope you won’t either. I’ll go so far as to warn you that I intend to grow my SubStack chops while I’m at this, testing the survey feature among other things. I appreciate your time.