The Sunset Limited

Cormac McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited is a good film, granted its peculiar themes. What themes? The existence of God, the meaning of life, the problem of evil, the value of human culture, Christian theology, and more besides. Why peculiar? Because serious treatment of such topics in cinema is both precious and rare. Outside the works of Terrence Malick and of the Brothers Coen, it’s hard to find someone in the film industry who is equipped to handle these issues.

The film is an adaptation of McCarthy’s 2006 play. He also wrote the screenplay. Tommy Lee Jones directs the work and stars alongside Samuel L. Jackson. Indeed, Jones and Jackson are the only actors. The film is about just two characters: the entire story concerns an ongoing philosophical dialogue between two sharp interlocutors — their sharpness sharpened by very different experiences — while sitting in the kitchen and living room of a small apartment unit.

That’s right! Unless you count the riveting action of thought pervading the whole 91 minutes, there are no action scenes or special effects. You will see no nudity or blood. Neither will there be stock characters, trite lines, emotional manipulation, or agitprop. What you will see are excellent acting and absorbing discussion on the big issues of life.

Yes, religion and theism are questioned rigorously and in some parts quite bluntly, yet (relatively) fairly and reasonably, as are non-religious and atheistic worldviews.* Yes, the viewer is confronted with tough questions about whether life is worth living and whether anything has objective value. But these are questions we must pursue if we are to live the examined life.

I’m no film critic, but as a philosopher, I enjoyed the piece.

*Jones’ character is a bit dogmatic, in my view; he seems certain that he’s right, and certainty about such matters is rationally unjustified. As for Jackson’s character: he seems inclined to a kind of fideism. I don’t endorse fideism either.

As I see it, there are plausible arguments for theism and plausible arguments for atheism. Each position can be buttressed on probabilistic grounds. Neither side has an unassailable, knockout, debate-ending case. Neither side is warranted in claiming epistemic certainty on the basis of philosophical argumentation.