Have you seen this movie? I watched it on DVD this weekend and was blown away. Black Snake Moan is one of the most powerful stories of redemption that I have seen. Here’s the synopsis:
After finding sex-addicted 22-year-old Rae (Christina Ricci) beaten and near death, blues musician Lazarus (Samuel L. Jackson) acts as a father figure to help redeem her in director Craig Brewer’s Southern-fried drama. But before saving anyone else, Lazarus — whose wife deserted him — must face his own demons. The supporting cast includes pop star Justin Timberlake, John Cothran Jr. and S. Epatha Merkerson. (source)
This is a pretty brutal film, hence the R rating. But it is a reminder that redemption doesn’t necessarily (if ever) come without struggle, and that parts of life (and ourselves) are just plain ugly.
The acting was superb. Samuel L. Jackson not only was an amazing actor, but he sang and jammed surprisingly well. Christina Ricci, whom I adored in the Addams Family movies (she played the girl Wednesday Addams), was utterly convincing as a sex addict. Justin Timberlake was not half bad as an actor. His character is a young man trying to make something of himself but who struggles with anxiety.
Though the acting was great, what really struck me was how the writer/director of the film, Craig Brewer, was able to hold together the hardness of life with the tenderness of life … how both darkness and light are able to exist simultaneously in a situation, in a person. Redemption doesn’t mean the absense of struggle or sin or hardship. It doesn’t always come peacefully nor does grasping it necessarily mean that everything is perfect now.
Although the DVD is being returned today, this is definitely a film that will stay with me for a while.
Happiness. I’ve been reflecting on happiness for the last week or so and am not sure what to make of it. There’s a sense that happiness should mean the absence of struggle or problems in life. But how can this be when we’re always bumping into or in the throes of struggle, suffering, pain, and the like? Is it really possible to be happy–not that giddy happiness, but more of a deep glow of happiness? If so, where does that happiness “fit” within the 
"She wrote the way she lived: on the fly, without retrospect, always on the way, climbing higher."