I’M LOSING YOU

The evils of human cruelty sneak up on the viewer in Bruce Wagner’s I’M LOSING YOU, an explicit adult drama about the terrible things that family members can do to one another. Happily, one of the main characters comes to a moral viewpoint by taking the Bible seriously, but not before the viewer has to see several frank, disgusting sinful acts.

Andrew McCarthy plays Bertie Krohn, a struggling, prideful young actor who refuses to appear on his father’s science fiction TV show. Bertie has primary custody of his cute young daughter because the mother has a drug problem. He becomes attracted to a young divorced woman named Aubrey (Elizabeth Perkins), who has a little boy. The problem is, Aubrey has the AIDS virus, but Bertie doesn’t mind – he still wants to fornicate with her and eventually does.

Bertie is very close to his sister, Rachel, played by a still lovely looking Roseanne Arquette. Rachel is actually Bertie’s first cousin. Her adoptive father, Bertie’s real father, is actually the brother of her real father, who allegedly died in a plane crash with his wife. In her work as an art appraiser, Rachel meets a Jewish woman who ritually washes corpses at a Jewish funeral parlor. The woman tells Rachel that her parents didn’t really die in a plane crash, her father murdered her mother and committed suicide after he caught his wife sleeping with his brother, Rachel’s adoptive father. Although she has questions about God, Rachel finds comfort in Psalm 139, the biblical passage used for the ritual purification of corpses. The passage speaks of the glory, comfort and salvation of God and reminds Rachel that each human being is “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Meanwhile, the father, Perry Krohn (Frank Langella), learns that the cancer in his lungs will give him less than a year left to live. Rather than directly face his upcoming death, Perry turns to a well-known female cast member of his show whom he has just hired. He begins an affair with her, even though his wife is very supportive of him during his grave illness, which hasn’t begun to affect him physically.

Then, death strikes Bertie’s daughter and Aubrey, whose catching of the AIDS virus was engineered by her own devious brother. Bertie must rely on Rachel to keep Aubrey’s son out of the clutches of Aubrey’s evil brother. Rachel in turn must rely on Bertie because she feels betrayed by both her adoptive father and her adoptive mother, who lied to her about her real parents. The movie ends with both Bertie and Rachel taking positive moral stands. Rachel quotes Psalm 139 as she watches Bertie and Aubrey’s son leave on a train.

As shown by this plot synopsis, I’M LOSING YOU has a moral worldview where the quoting of Scripture plays an important role. The story of the movie, however, includes strong foul language and several explicit sexual scenes that will leave many viewers with a sour taste in their mouths. They irredeemably taint its moral goodness. In a way, this is similar to what happened to last year’s critically acclaimed war movie, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Thus, despite the moral heroism that the two main characters, Bertie and Rachel, display in I’M LOSING YOU, the movie undercuts it by involving both characters in the kinds of sexual immorality that infects the two major villains in the movie. Bertie especially seems neurotically obsessed with exposing himself to the AIDS virus by having explicit sex with Aubrey. His reckless behavior here makes no sense given the strong protectiveness he displays toward his own child.

Consequently, I’M LOSING YOU is both dramatically and morally inconsistent. Director Bruce Wagner, who also wrote the screenplay based on his own novel, may be another of those artists who understands some of the Bible’s value but who lacks the complete understanding that only a true believer can really have. Knowing the Word of God is good, but following it requires true and faithful discipleship.