“Bliss”, directed by Mike Cahill, starring Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek, released 2/5/21, is a beautiful, thought-provoking film exploring themes of addiction, mental illness, and the human fascination with a utopian alternative to the world. Critics have widely dismissed the film, some giving it as low as 2 stars, yet, I found it fascinating. It is highly relevant to those of us deconstructing religious belief.

PLOT SUMMARY

To summarize, “Bliss” is a utopian sci-fi drama about an unfulfilled man (Owen Wilson) at a rock bottom moment who meets an intriguing woman (Salma Hayek) who tries to convince him that they are living in a simulation. Greg Whittle (played by Owen Wilson) is obsessed with a utopian fantasy and spends his work hours drawing pictures and fantasizing about a better world. This obsession is a result of being recently divorced, and perhaps a mental disorder fueling his delusions. His escapism affects his work and he winds up fired.

He meets a gorgeous woman named Isabel, who appears to be homeless, and she begins luring him into her world of defying reality with the help of hallucinogenic drugs. She manages to convince him that they are soul mates, living in a simulation and begins to define what is real, and what is part of the simulation. Throughout their escapade, reality keeps haunting Greg in the form of his daughter, Emily. Isabel feels threatened by Emily’s existence and continues her narrative of simulation, and keeps convincing Greg that his daughter isn’t real.

However, Greg cannot let his daughter go, so a desperate Isabel seeks to prove to him that she is telling the truth about the simulation. They both take crystals (hallucinogens) and are transported to a utopian earth where everything is perfect. It is the fantasy Greg used to spend his working hours dreaming of. In this utopia, Isabel is the doctor that invented the simulation of the poverty-stricken world they just escaped. Her research is trying to prove that to appreciate the good, you have to experience the bad. Her invention gives humans the negative life experience they need to appreciate life in the utopian world. Soon, the poverty-stricken world begins to bleed into the fantasy, and Greg has to choose where he belongs.

KEY TAKEAWAY

 It’s natural for humans to dream of a better alternative to the world we are living in. This drives social justice movements, creativity, and other great societal contributions. However, this dreaming of a better world is an easy trait to exploit. It often comes packaged as an idea of a utopian afterlife. This exploitation is highly present in many religions throughout the world. In Christianity, this fantastical dreamworld is called heaven, where everything is perfect. The heaven I grew up believing in closely resembles the paradise earth that Greg Wittle dreams about and experiences in “Bliss”.

The Christianity I came from seemed centered around the idea of an afterlife. The deep need for a paradise that lives in the human psyche thrived there. We could go to this place called heaven IF we did these certain things and believed these certain things. Just like Greg Wittle, it seems that my belief system was addicted to the idea of bliss. The religion was just like Isabel convincing Greg that his reality wasn’t real/significant, and there is some other realm on the outside of it that IS the actual life, the one that matters.

My old belief system of evangelical Christianity also centered around the rapture. The seductive doctrine of the rapture reminds me of the hallucinogenic crystals that Greg and Isabel can ingest to escape to the utopian realm. As a Christian, I hoped for the rapture. I yearned to escape this world to live in my true, forever paradise. It was a focal point of my faith and reiterated many times through sermons, catch-phrases, and the church’s obsession with awful world news that proved the end times were near. The worse the world got, the closer we were to Jesus taking us out. Admittedly, I became addicted to the idea of bliss too, just like Greg Wittle.

In my opinion, this preoccupation with escape, whether that’s through addiction to drugs/alcohol, love, sex, utopian dreamworlds, or religion, steals from us the only life we have, this one. It draws us away from authentic human connection. Yet, we should envision a better world because we do have the power and ingenuity to change it. We can create a future where human/planetary suffering is reduced. However, there must be clarity between a tomorrow we can envision and co-create, and an illusion used by advertisers, religions, or the media to exploit our deep human need for a better existence or life after death.

In many ways, we are living in a hell on earth. We don’t have to look very far for the evidence of that. Yet, there is so much beauty too, reasons for enjoyment, love, celebration, and mystery. Utopia might be boring after a while. Perhaps, we should heed the words of Joseph Campbell when he told us to “follow your bliss,” but in this life, instead of chasing a mirage. Let nothing steal your reality, your mind, and especially the only life there is, the here and now. We must choose where we belong, just like Greg Wittle. 

Do we belong in a fantasy or this imperfect reality of our life? Alternatives may simply be an illusion.

Watch “Bliss” on Amazon Prime.