Benny & Joon
Today is a funny day of windows and doors. I woke up at 4am to check on a final report filing for a London expert witness assignment I have been working on. It needed to be filed by 5pm London time with the court and we had worked on it for a month with a particularly intensive last ten days and a very high pressure last 72 hours since we were given some new instructions by the law firm involved. There was new evidence and fact patterns to include in the analysis of the case and it made for a fairly detailed review of what had become a 130-page report that needed to be filed today in London, eight hours ahead of me here in San Diego. So, 4am was noon in London. My partners, working out of Palermo and Lisbon were nine hours ahead of me and trying to shape up all the work we had done in the past few days so that the report was perfect with all the citations lining up correctly. The way this works is that I am the expert of record and I have to represent to the court that everything was done with my supervision and guidance and that I endorse all of it. Sounds easy, but the time zones and last minute changes make it a bit more challenging, not to mention that the issues are very complicated and not at all cut-and-dried. But the door had to close and we managed to meet the deadline.
The movie Benny & Joon is a sweet movie made in 1993 about the topic of dealing with mental illness. It just happened to be on TV this afternoon when I hit my biorhythmic low, brought on by my early rising. The movie takes a particularly interesting angle on the issue of mental illness because it involves a young woman, Joon, played by Mary Stuart Masterson, who is just a little off-kilter and is cared for by her attentive working-class brother, played by Aiden Quinn, Benny. Joon has the distinction of creating a term I like to use (I am forever the only one who seems to “get it”). She suggests that Sam is having a “Boo Radley” moment. For those of you who don’t remember To Kill a Mockingbird, Boo was the reclusive and somewhat “touched” neighbor boy who acts as the embodiment of the fears and prejudices of the fictional town of Maycomb. A “Boo Radley” moment , therefore, is one that is rather discombobulated.
Benny feels a debt of obligation to Joon because her trauma goes back to the accidental death of their parents when she was young. At a quirky, friendly poker game with pals like Oliver Platt and Dan Hedaya (both great character actors), Hedaya loses his slightly whacky nephew Sam, played by Johnny Depp, to Benny on a big hand. Sam also has a few screws loose we are led to believe. He cannot read or write but makes mean grilled cheese sandwiches with an iron and does a street mime act that is meant to rival Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin combined. Benny even dresses to look like the “Little Tramp”. The movie is about the closing of doors and opening of windows. Familial life with Benny and Joon gets slammed shut by the circumstances of life, but they both get new windows opened for them. Joon finds Sam and Benny finds Ruthie, an actress turned waitress, played by Julianne Moore.
Speaking of opening windows, think about how that little movie made twenty-seven years ago spawned the careers of its leading actors. Quinn, Masterson, Depp, Moore, Platt, Hedaya and even a bit part for William H. Macy. Granted Desperately Seeking Susan, Fried Green Tomatoes, Edward Scissorhands, and The Fugitive might have set them up, respectively, for their success before Benny & Joon. The windows open wide. As good a springboard for success as the movie was for the actors, it did little for the genius of the writer or director. Barry Berman wrote this insightful and poignant script and went on to write little more. Same for the director, Jeremiah Chechik, whose only claim to dubious fame after this well-directed showing with great budding stars was directing Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo and Randy Quaid in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. While I’m not without some good humor about Chevy torching the northeast power grid, I think its fair to suggest that both Barry and Jeremiah heard the thud of a door slamming on their noses for some inexplicable reason.
I think it’s fair to say that the random walk of life is one of the things that makes this life all so interesting. One door closes and another window opens.
On this morning I had just received a pleasant congratulatory note from the partner of the law firm that retained me as an expert witness. He thanked us for our “monumental” effort and seemed to understand the handstands we had been forced to make in the service of our duties. While the case is far from over and there will likely be more to come in taking this to the mat, as they say, for the moment, the door has closed. Strangely enough, it was just then that I received an email from the lawyer on the last case, sending me the rebuttal letter on my expert opinion letter. I had just produced and submitted a rebuttal in the newer case, where I had taken the Defendant’s expert to task by disagreeing strongly with him on his conclusions. I tried to do it in a dignified manner, being careful to show respect for the expert’s knowledge and capabilities. This was the British High Court after all.
I have now given a quick read to the rebuttal of my opinions submitted in a Kansas City court action. There is no doubt that the U.S., litigation bar is far more bare-fisted than the British High Court. This rebuttal made no bones about taking me to task for my opinions and calling me out as less than competent and consistent in my opinions. Let the games begin. The door that closed this morning helped cap a very busy month. the window that opened shortly thereafter reopened my December and January efforts. Do onto others as you wish them to do onto you. Seems I have read that somewhere, and I don’t think it was in the court instructions on either case nor in the witness testimony.
Doors close and windows open. Sometimes windows close and doors open. What I take away from Benny & Joon is perhaps a little mental illness can be a good thing in helping to maintain perspective. What Benny can’t see about Joon and what Sam doesn’t understand about caring for Benny all make this a movie of slamming doors. In fact, it is the ethereal aspect of that little touch of craziness that pries open the windows to the heart. So beware of being too rigid and be kind to others that honestly bear witness, for they too have their Boo Radley moments.