The movie, Phenomenon, was not a huge hit when it came out in 1996, despite it’s top tier cast (John Travolta, Kyra Sedgwick, Robert Duvall, Forest Whitaker). Today you will find reviews that average in the mid-range, but are comprised of one extreme or the other. But I have always found the film’s themes very moving and insightful. A recent viewing reminded me of why. So much in Phenomenon speaks to concepts in Spiritual Naturalism.
Most audiences would already know going in that George Malley (Travolta) is a farmer that sees lights in the sky and soon notices he has gained remarkable intelligence, which leads to many other abilities. I won’t spoil it in this paragraph, but the themes of this film include: interconnectedness, empathy, compassion, fear of the unknown, our potential in life, appreciation of the moment, making a difference, environmentalism, the difference between intelligence and wisdom, and dealing with impermanence, loss, and grief. If you haven’t seen it I highly recommend.
Once you’ve seen this film, come back here for a more in depth SN analysis which follows – warning: all major spoilers below…
The first thing we see from George, after his experience with the lights, is an increase in basic intelligence, clarity of thought, and memory. He can suddenly beat the town Doctor at chess, he reads at incredible speeds, etc. From that he is soon making new inventions and figuring out complex barters for goods and services between the various town folk.
But this alone isn’t what makes the film significant. From his newfound intelligence, George begins to notice the interconnectedness of all things. Part of genius is being able to conceptualize connections between ideas and concepts others didn’t think of, to find solutions. In seeing these interconnections, George begins to appreciate the trees and other natural wonders. We see many moments of him just taking it in.
We talk about this kind of thing as a spiritual practice or a source of spirituality a lot here at SNS. Learning to focus on interconnectedness lets us realize interdependence. And that leads to so much more.
Soon we see that in George, as his greater awareness of these connections makes him recognize the interplay of cause and effect is more like a dance than a matter of control. Although this manifests in the fiction eventually as a paranormal ability (telekinesis), that notion of being in a dance with the cosmos is so central to how so many traditions describe wisdom. The screenwriter, Gerald Di Pego, has said that the philosophy of Zen influenced these aspects of his script for the film; one of the many traditions to which Spiritual Naturalists often relate.
Although the film includes paranormal abilities, and Spiritual Naturalists are generally skeptical of such claims, such powers in fiction, understood as such, can be a representation of a theme without promoting superstition outright. The role of this power in the film is similar to the possibility of George’s experience being one of UFO’s. That potential explanation is held throughout the film, but eventually we learn the cause of George’s condition is a naturalistic one.
George’s condition was a brain tumor (a form of astrocytoma) that connected different regions of his brain in unusual ways. This explained his genius intelligence, but also lead to his eventual death. The paranormal abilities played several important roles in the film.
The first role was to be a stand-in, an example, that represented ‘the unknown’ or the potential for something you never thought possible. George said he was glad it turned out to be a tumor because it meant that it was not something from the outside or the beyond. And we see potential in George even before his experience. He is shown as an empathetic character that buys Lace’s chairs to make her happy, even though she thinks they are popular sellers. A big message in the film is that we all have the potential to be more than we are, to be more wise, compassionate, find more meaning in life, and have more of an impact than we think.
The second role of the powers was to show how easily distracted we become by flash and glitter, and the superficial. What George was trying to explain to people about how we are interdependent and connected, and how to live as if in a dance with the world, was so much more important that a parlor trick, or a fascination with ‘powers’. I am reminded of a friend who attended the same Buddhist temple as myself. He said he originally got involved with meditation as a youngster because he thought it would give him mental powers. Laughing at his past self, he expressed how much more of importance meditation had given him in reality. This was the same attitude the film represented, as if to tell us to keep our eye on what really matters.
There was a third role we see for the ability, in the scene where George gets angry and breaks the mirror in his friend’s bar with his mind. This makes everyone afraid of him. The larger message here is that, when we raise our awareness, become more empathetic, more focused, more perceptive – that we increase our powers to affect the world and, most importantly, our power to both help or harm others. And this is why mindfulness practice should be accompanied by work on compassion.
George’s insights on interconnection naturally lead to greater empathy. He can more easily place himself in others’ shoes. And that leads him to greater levels of compassion. Later in the film, George exudes love and kindness to everyone around him. His vibe is not unlike the Dalai Lama’s or Gandhi, or even Mr. Rogers.
Yet George knows he will die soon. Lace asks him what he’s feeling and he asks him to show how she held her child when it was a baby. She then understand he is seeing everyone and the world like a mother sees her child. I have written before how a mother’s love (ideally) can be a close example of agape for our practice.
And the way the film handles death is one of my favorite aspects. When Lace’s children are upset that George will die, he shows them the apple he’s eating and how it would go to waste if he threw it down. But if he takes a bite, the apple becomes a part of him and lives on. He is asking the kids to remember him and let his example and memory shape them as they go out i to the world. Symbolically they engage in this communion and bite into the apple.
And the film doesn’t undercut its own message by having some miraculous event save or heal George – because that isn’t reality. Our spiritual practice isn’t nutritionally empty candy. It is training to nourish and prepare us for real life and real issues, and death is part of that. That’s why the film doesn’t look away at the moment of George’s death. It shows him die, and lingers in that moment. Then it shows Lace taking in the reality of it setting in, sometime later, as she cries on the porch, sitting in the chair she built and George bought.
And then, of course, we see a year later, the town has bitten the apple. They have taken in and remember George, who lives on in them, the impact of his life still affecting what they are doing, relationships, and so on.
It was 23 years after the release of this film that Vulture magazine interviewed Kyra Sedgwick specifically about Phenomenon. She said she was happy people are still moved and like the film. She thinks it really touched people because it spoke of compassion, love, loss, and grief. She said she is more spiritual now than she was back then and when asked why she said, “Nature is very spiritual for me…”
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References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenon_(film)
https://www.vulture.com/2019/09/kyra-sedgwick-answers-all-of-our-questions-about-phenomenon.html
Keep up the good work. I am retired, otherwise I would be a paying member.
jc
Thank you for this re-recommendation. We just re-watched Phenomenon last night. Indeed, there is a difference between wisdom and knowledge. And there are more ways to be healed than just getting “cured.”