When it comes to my views of the afterlife, two days out of every week I’m probably an annihilationist; another two days, I believe in eternal separation; two more I’m a full-blown heretic; and usually on Saturdays I’m ambivalent.
The Drop, starring Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, and the late James Gandolfini, is not about the afterlife. It is actually an excellent neo-noir, crime thriller set in Brooklyn, penned by Dennis LeHane (author of Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone), based on his own short story. This does not stop the main character from, in his brief, understated narrations, thinking about the afterlife and speculating what might be in store for him.
Toward the end of the movie, Hardy’s character Bob delivers this monologue (paraphrase): “You ever do something so bad you know you can never come back from it? When you know that the devil is just waiting for your body to give up fighting so he can drag your soul down to hell? But then you realize there is no devil, and there is no hell, and when you die you go up there and God simply says, ‘You can’t come in here. You have to be alone… forever.’”
The film is about loneliness. Without spoiling any of the twists, Bob is a complicated character who is both smarter and dumber than he seems. You see empathy and deep feelings, but there’s also something missing in his eyes. He will correct his boss on calling people from Chechnya “Chechnyans” (they’re called “Chechens”), but does not anticipate the consequences of other particular actions. Meanwhile, in James Ganolfini’s final posthumous appearance, Cousin Marv experiences the loneliness of once being a big-shot mobster in town and now being a simple pawn in someone else’s game.
Bob and Marv live stagnant in the aftermath of their past actions. Their loneliness only increases with time, and one turns toward empathy while the other lashes out in desperation. Even though they have each other often at arm’s length, their loneliness and dread push them in very different directions. By the end of the film, one is lucky to be distanced from the other, being told by the Chechens, “It’s a good thing you’re alone.”
Assuming that I’m not correct on my heretic-days, this movie makes a tragic case for the true outcome of sin: complete loneliness. The actions we take in this world that are counter to God’s work force us into isolation from our communities, our loved-ones, and perhaps even God.
It has become popular in academic and even mainstream Christianity to talk about the Kingdom of God as breaking in on earth in the present, not just in the afterlife. Many theologians are saying that heaven is not something that starts when we die, but starts now and continues on.
What Bob expresses in The Drop is that perhaps hell, whatever we believe about it, may operate in this same way. Separation from God begins and is felt at any point in this life when we sin against our fellow human. The worst hell would be one of eternal loneliness, and many around us and perhaps even we ourselves experience that hell even now. Our actions create chaos that we can’t undo. As one character pleads with another, “Are you doing something desperate? Something we can’t clean up this time?” We all likely have a story of irreparable damage done in a relationship and the aftermath.
We believe that in spite of it all, hell has been overcome, even on earth. However, The Drop reminds us that whatever our doctrine tells us about what comes next, the ramifications of heaven and hell are felt on a daily basis by those around us, even (or especially) among people like Bob. “They never see you coming, do they Bob?” a character remarks in the end. The self-perpetuating cycle of loneliness drags many to hell in this life and perhaps beyond. Heaven may be much more than eternal community and relationship, but I can’t imagine it would be anything less.
You might also find these reviews of The Drop helpful:
Christianity Today – Alissa Wilkinson
Tinsel – Matt Harrison
Tinsel – Andrew Spitznes
