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Is it worth $10? Yes
When we first meet Will (Josh Hopkins) in the beginning of “Lebanon, PA” he gets dumped by his girlfriend, fakes pushing a button to hold an elevator door open, talks to clients about the value of marketing to children (he’s in advertising), and argues bitterly with his mother (Mary Beth Hurt). From the outset, the film looks as if it’s going to be about a mean city man’s redemption in small town America. Will gets news that his father is dead, and has to travel from Philadelphia to Lebanon, Pennsylvania, to settle his father’s affairs.
But the Will we see in the first five minutes of “Lebanon, PA” is not the same Will we see for the other 95 minutes. Once he gets to Lebanon, he becomes more of a regular, likeable guy. It could be that writer/director Ben Hickernell originally intended the film to take the direction of following Will on his road to redemption, but decided to go in another way to explore other characters and issues. That makes sense given a heavy issue that the film tackles. The best thing to do is chalk up Will’s behavior in the beginning of the film to a guy having a bad day, and move on.
When Will gets to Lebanon, he meets teenage neighbor CJ (Rachel Kitson) and her father Andy (Ian Merrill Peakes). Will and CJ form a bond, and CJ becomes almost as central a character as Will after she reveals to him that she’s pregnant. She wants to have an abortion, but can’t talk to her father about it because he is a very devout Catholic and she knows he won’t listen to her.
The debate with and around CJ is at the moral center of this story. The town of Lebanon is very small and very anti-abortion. While the film does side with CJ and her struggle to find someone to talk to about abortion and a place to have one performed, it doesn’t short change the other point of view. There are several scenes, mostly with Andy, where the anti-abortion views are stated and a perfectly admissible argument is made for the alternatives.
A lesser film would have turned these characters into pro-life demons and portrayed them as nutjobs, but not “Lebanon, PA.” In this film they are portrayed as real people, with beliefs and values that they hold dear, the same as anyone else. The film has an important message when it comes to this, or any other hot-button debate: The people who disagree with you may be wrong, or stubborn, or uneducated in your mind, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t think and feel as strongly and as passionately about what they believe as you do. They’re human beings too.
Will has an affair of his own with a local schoolteacher named Vicki (Samantha Mathis). She’s married and is having issues with her husband. He falls for her hard and fast, and thinks about abandoning his life in Philadelphia to live at his father’s old house in Lebanon, much to the chagrin of his mother, who is relying on him to help her with some financial trouble she’s having. The end of the film and how all of these issues and relationships are resolved is satisfying and logical, not pat. A mainstream Hollywood film may not have had the courage to end on some of the notes that this one ends on.
“Lebanon, PA” is a drama, and a well-written one. One of the first things screenwriters are taught is to write parts that actors will want to play. It’s easy to see why the actors in this film wanted these roles. Every major character has a soliloquy at some point, where they express their true feelings and/or tell a story about something that happened in their past. The skill that it takes for an actor to fill in the emotional content of those speeches—and make the audience feel those emotions as well—should be appreciated. This film is a showcase for some great talent, and even if it doesn’t make a ton of money at the box office, at the very least the actors all have some fantastic footage for their clip reels.
If You Like “Lebanon, PA”: Check out Alexander Payne’s “Citizen Ruth” (1996). It’s another independent film that tackles the abortion debate, but does so in a very funny way.
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