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Aaron (Henry Hamlin) and Rachel (Kristin Kerr) in The Fouth Noble Truth. |
By Ed Rampell
Aaron (Harry Hamlin) is a pampered, self-centered movie star who exemplifies the stereotypical self-indulgent Hollywood lifestyle. After a violent episode of road rage (that’s not very well directed), as a condition of staying out of the slammer Aaron attends private Buddhist meditation lessons taught by Rachel (Kristin Kerr), who is also an aspiring actress.
Of course, their relationship begins with a typical Tinseltown “cute meet” that foreshadows what is to come. Skeptical of the whole meditation methodology, Aaron is basically complying with the stipulation to take part in this Buddhist process in order to beat the road-rage rap and avoid serving time. However, Rachel is serious and proceeds to teach Aaron, whether he likes it or not, Buddha’s basic principles so he can discover inner peace and avoid going postal in the future.
Aaron embodies the privileged, egocentric self, while Kristen appears to symbolize spiritual values. Much of The Fourth Noble Truthliterally consists of a dialogue between the two, with their diametrically opposed world views. Aaron is the libertine, Rachel the ascetic. Their interactions are well-acted. However, the level of dialogue in The Fourth Noble Truth is no My Dinner with Andre.
Written and directed by Gary T. McDonald, The Fourth Noble Truth's path to enlightenment is problematic and doesn’t fulfill the promise of its premise. While at first the discussions about the tenets of Buddhism do raise some consciousness and are absorbing and educational, The Fourth Noble Truthquickly runs out of steam. After half an hour the eight or so conversations between Aaron and Rachel become extremely repetitive, boring and preachy. Moreover, there are onscreen titles to drive the Buddhist points home.
In addition to being aurally dull, the gabfests aren’t even shot with interesting angles. An artist like Orson Welles might have lensed these visually flat vignettes to at least make them optically stimulating.
What’s worse, especially annoying, is that the prim and proper Buddhist tutor is a sexually repressed person using “enlightenment” to hide her inner conflicts and inhibitions. Rachel is no better than those Catholic girls Billy Joel sang about, but she -- who, we’re told, hasn’t had sex for at least three years --- hides behind Buddhism to mask her suppressed sexuality. Apparently, she's another holier-than-thou stick-in-the-mud misusing religion as a rationalization for her sexual repression (to wit, see the Duggar Family scandal as a more extreme example of this abuse of faith). In one of The Fourth Noble Truth'searly scenes, after watching a DVD starring Aaron, Rachel starts to fantasize about having sex with him. But Rachel is so uptight that not only does she stop herself from having an affair with the star, but from even allowing herself to masturbate. Instead of meditation, Rachel could use some masturbation.
Hardly a role model, in a Q&A with the talent after a private screening of The Fourth Noble Truth, Kerr actually expressed being irritated at her sexually frustrated character. Like most pedants, Rachel isn’t as knowledgeable about the secrets and meaning of life as she pretends to be. Rachel is a know-it-all who desperately needs some carnal knowledge, and it’s frankly annoying and gets on some nerves (including of said actress) that she’s cloaking herself in proverbial Buddhist robes to disguise her dysfunction.
And, as said, the low budget indy’s repetitive will-they/won’t-they and verbal sparring about her hang-ups becomes tiresome and extremely redundant. In the hands of a better screenwriter, Rachel’s actual lack of insight and enlightenment could have been developed more -- like the hypocritical missionary in the classic short story, Rain. McDonald is no W. Somerset Maugham.
Beneath its Buddhist veneer, The Fourth Noble Truth is yet another autumn-male/summer-female flick. This feature will most likely appeal to those interested in and acolytes of Buddhism and various techniques of meditation. But most moviegoers will probably feel this verbose exercise in didacticism, with its ignoble protagonists, fails to dramatize its path to higher consciousness.
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