Harry meets his buddy Richard in a fancy restaurant, eager to share important news about his life. He is going to leave Patricia. He has found someone else. He wants to “be happy”, he says, and “all Pat wants is sex”. Harry thinks there is more to marriage than sex – he wants affection and cuddling. He wants to give. Pat just wants the sex. Bit of a role reversal for you there.

Kay enters in all her glory, and Richard asks himself why on earth a girl like her would fall for a guy like Harry. We understand that although Richard likes his friend very much, he is well aware that he is a bit of a bore.

As things evolve, Richard becomes increasingly obsessed with Kay. He wants her. He thinks about her all the time. Harry does too of course. In fact, he is preparing for his new life with Kay, scheming to find a way to get out with the least amount of noise. Harry sees his wife as a fragile soul who would break down completely were he to leave her. Harry doesn’t like to see people suffer, he tells Richard, so he hatches the plan to…kill her.

This plan is all based on his total ineptitude at understanding who his wife is. He has succumbed to the compromise of marriage, the drudgery of suburbian comforts, and now he feels trapped. He wants out.

Dark secrets behind the pleasant facade

The story Harry tells himself about not wanting people to suffer is basically self-deluded nonsense. It’s his own suffering he is afraid of, and as he is a coward, he cannot own up to it, and instead projects it onto Patricia with the intent of ending “her” misery. He has no clue.

This situation is an extreme version of a common masculine pathology: By failing to own up to their own vulnerability, many men play games, live in little fantasy worlds where others are in the wrong, where the others are the fragile or “evil” ones. The passive aggressive man creates a little cushion for himself, where he can sit comfortably and judge and misinterpret others from within the comforts of his own mind. There is no chance of being brought on trial for it in the “real world”. That is the prerogative of the passive aggressive man. It is why Harry is happy seeing the world from that perspective. It’s why many men are.

Unbeknownst to Richard, Harry moves ahead with his plan. And unbeknownst to Harry, Richard is maneuvering to take Kay from him. He does so on the basis of his life philosophy “You cannot build the unhappiness upon the unhappiness of someone else.” The question Richard eventually asks himself, to his credit, is if his hunt for Kay makes him a hypocrite. Richard is slightly more of a man than Harry, but just barely. He too is a coward, who cannot come clear with his friend about his true intentions and his true feelings about Harry’s betrayal of Pat. This is unfortunate, for the raw and brutal honesty of true male friendship would clear up the act of both of these guys. Alas, they don’t have true friendship, true brotherhood. What they have is a functional agreement about spending comfortable time together while sharing mildly pleasant conversation. Sound familiar?

When Richard discovers that Pat too is unfaithful, with a young and vigorous author named John, he is given the opportunity to come clear with them both, to, as he puts it, “set them free”. A surge of happiness rises in him, but Richard cannot utter the words. He has already started weaving the web of deceit to get Kay and now he has castrated himself with his inability to handle life head on. He falls flat on his face, impotent, afraid of life.

Tear down lies and pretense in your friendships

Because Richard didn’t man up, Harry’s plan progresses. Here is where we see how the inability of a guy to be a true and honest friend to his buddy can cause dramatic results. The mechanics of this particular plot may seem unrealistic and over the top, but not so much. For in truth, every time you give or receive lies with no remorse, you are failing your duty as a true friend and as a man. You are committing treachery against yourself, your buddy, truth, life itself. Often these opportunities to come totally clear with life arise several times every day. But many have been so numbed by living a life of subtle dishonesty that they think it’s normal. So they will happily see a friend fuck himself up without intervening. Now there’s such a thing as adapting to circumstances, not always having to strip others bare, but the capacity should be developed.

Finding yourself by losing everything

Richard, the dick that he is (pun intended), takes his plan to its fruition and steals Kay. In a sense, there is something right about it, as they are a better match, but it was a covert operation. Harry crumbles when he catches them red handed, and utters with tears in his eyes “I lost everything today.” Serves him right in a way, as we see from the scene previously. There he looks at Kay with puppy eyes and serves her the most agonizing line “Oh, I love you so much Kay. Nothing scares me when I’m with you”. There is nothing wrong in being a sensitive and romantic soul. Nothing at all. It is a beautiful thing. But expecting your intimate partner to be happy being your mother as opposed to your lover is totally unacceptable. What a treachery of her feminine core! What a treachery of your masculine potential! What a big waste of a man.

Anyway, as we were saying, he has lost everything: Kay, his buddy Richard, perhaps also his wife – who is about to drink the poison he so compassionately prepared for her. All of a sudden, ridding himself of Pat isn’t quite as tempting a prospect for Harry, and fortunately, when he arrives home, she is not dead. The gravity of his almost-murder finally hits him, and he realizes that he’d be lost without Pat. Having found no true freedom in himself, he needs a woman to mother him through the rough waters of life. He almost killed his “mom”.

Conclusion

The movie ends on a bit of a bullshit note – everybody being happy and everything forgotten. This speaks to the release of truth that has happened for these people, especially for Harry, and the increased clarity it has brought them. But the karmic patterns here are not gone, not until all truths have been revealed. Some have been, but not all, and they never will be of course. So happiness will never be truly theirs. How many lies are we willing to accept as foundation stones in our lives? That’s for you to find out.

Enter Michael Clayton, the company “fixer” – or the janitor as he likes to refer to himself – who moves silently in shadows, helping things “go away” when the rich and reckless fuck up. Michael’s world is one where ethics is the first sacrifice on the way to power for those lustful enough to reach for it. It is a dark realm where standing responsible for your actions is an inconvenience that can be solved, as long as the retainer is of the right magnitude.

Meltdown in the wake of immorality

This world has taken its toll. Michael is a weary man, with a drawn and haggard face. His best days are in the past, and there is a subtle feeling of despair spreading its clammy fingers around his increasingly fragile existence. His escape plan of starting a restaurant with his brother Tim has fallen apart due to Tim’s alcoholism, and now he is faced with the undesirable task of setting things right with a dangerous loan shark whom the failed business owns $75.000. Michael wants out of this world, this cesspit of immorality on the shadow side of existence, but given his circumstances, he has been forced even closer to the heart of darkness.

Arthur Edens’ sudden revelation, his flash of insight into the error of his ways, is an inconvenience. The case is drawing to a close as U-North is preparing for a settlement, but now that Arthur is proclaiming his own rebirth, free at last from the world of sin which he has spent 30 years of his precious life wallowing in, Kenner, Bach & Ledeen is in one heck of a bind. With his friend and colleague flipping out, senior partner Marty needs Michael’s expertise to somehow bring the problem under control. And Michael is his best bet, make no mistake, but this time his challenge is of a different magnitude.

Arthur is a depressing case study in what happens to a man who bases his life – his livelihood – on deeply immoral activities, as is the case for so many of the other fractured human souls the film shows haunting the office tombs of Manhattan. The world which Arthur has spent 30 years of his life mastering is a cold and brutal place, where truth can be bought at the right price, and compassion has been given early retirement. But Arthur’s shell has cracked, the armor which has protected him from himself finally dissolved:

…I realized Michael, that I had emerged not from the doors of Kenner, Bach, and Ledeen, not through the portals of our vast and powerful law firm, but from the asshole of an organism whose sole function is to excrete the… the-the-the poison, the ammo, the defoliant necessary for other, larger, more powerful organisms to destroy the miracle of humanity. And that I had been coated in this patina of shit for the best part of my life. The stench of it and the stain of it would in all likelihood take the rest of my life to undo.

Reborn in innocence

Arthur’s epiphany is feverish in intensity and akin to spiritual revelation. He feels that he has had a vision, that he has been summoned to do greater things with his life. And the ramifications on the U-North case are tremendous; it turns out that his hard-won insight has lead him to switch sides, to start building a rock solid case against his former corporate client.

Arthur pleads with Michael again and again not to brush him off as a madman. He seems to be trying, from the depths of his rediscovered heart, to bring across a message from a different state of being. And it is here that the film forces us to pose a question that has perhaps become – through repeat use – somewhat trite: Who is really the insane one here? Is it the man who claims with obvious zest and enthusiasm that he is Shiva, the God of Death? Is it the henchmen that will soon kill him for Karen Crowder’s dirty money? Is it Marty Bach, the man who has dedicated his life to a business he himself admits is fucked up? Is it Don Jeffries – the head of U-North who willingly sacrificed the lives of hundreds of farmers for his own personal gain and the progress of his company? Or is it Michael Clayton, a man who deep down is decent, but who has become so numb and shut down – pain etched across his face – after having sidelined his humanity one too many times?

These are questions worthy of contemplation, but there is, at this moment, perhaps something of even greater interest to investigate. We’d do well to look closer at the source of Arthur’s descent into madness – or ascent into spiritual revelation: Anna. Anna is a young farm girl – orphaned by U-North – one among the 400-something plaintiffs, who captures Arthur’s heart by virtue of her innocence. Arthur sees the world anew through her – she is the prism through which the light comes alive in myriad colors of magnificent beauty, gently striking Arthur’s hurting heart with grace. All of a sudden, and with great impact, Arthur is born again through the eyes of pure innocence.

To the adult mind which has been defiled through years of bad conduct and unethical choices, there is something extremely potent about innocence. Witnessing innocence in another can remind us of our basic, inherent humanity, which is a gift far more powerful than money could every buy. Arthur goes mad with passion and regret in her presence – throws off his clothes and proclaims his undying love, seeking his redemption with single-pointed determination. Worse things happen when the defiled adult mind wants to own the innocence, especially when children are involved, but that – thankfully – is not the subject of this movie.

It’s important to acknowledge that while innocence is normally attributed to children, it is more of a state of mind, one that which can be attained through being transparent to the world. The individual who does not hide inside a shell of make-believe is indeed innocent. This type of innocence is a way of looking at the world – every moment – with fresh eyes. This is truly is what schools of spirituality call Enlightenment. Much of our world functions in ways that completely corrupt our innocence, and we are cut off from ourselves, every moment, others, the world. You will notice that in the movie, everyone is guilty but Anna, and in reality the entire drama that inevitably brings down U-North is sourced in her.

Michael’s journey of self-discovery

Arthur takes Michael along with him for quite a psychological ride. Along the way, Michael is forced to take some long overdue looks at himself. “Was this what you wanted?”, Arthur asks Michael half asleep from his hotel bed, “be a janitor? Live like this? All this? Do what you do? It can’t be! It’s a burden is what I’m trying to tell you. I know, we have been summoned!” Arthur is calling on Michael to join him on the crusade for good that he has just discovered. Michael does not take him seriously at first, but it sneaks up on him, and he is stuck with the feeling that he has sacrificed his integrity for success and has become a despicable man. He is absolutely disgusted with himself. And when Arthur is murdered in a feigned suicide by the aforementioned henchmen, two lost souls haunting this movie’s spiritual wasteland, Michael is unable to let the case go. The gravity of Arthur’s passion and the magnitude of his realization has got under Michaels’s skin. He is the only person who can carry Arthur’s torch forwards. To redeem himself, Michael has no choice.

But he has a $75.000 debt to settle, and when Marty back offers him a “bonus” of $80.000 as long as he shuts up about Arthur’s findings, he is faced with the ultimate dilemma: Does he respect his dead friend and his own personal honor or does he take the easy way out? In effect, does he choose to be a man, in the truest sense of the word? He takes the money, effectively ending his soul.

Redemption

But it is not the end. In a mysterious event, graced as if by the hand of God, he discovers – as he tries to outrun his inner demons by driving recklessly and randomly through the countryside – something familiar on a hill. In front of him are three horses, in a scene exactly like one depicted in the strange fantasy book Realm and Conquest that linked Arthur with Harry, Michael’s very special son and Arthur’s second source of innocence. Something comes together for Michael in this scene; he looks infinitely vulnerable where he stands exhaling deep relief into the cool dawn air, liberated by the innocence of three horses on a hill in a countryside unspoiled by humanity. His inner demons leave him alone there and something in him reconnects with its source. There is the sense here – ever so strong – of the incredible tragedies that have befallen human civilization. We have created such pain for ourselves. All this angst and paranoia, this stress and hurt, this separation, fear, loneliness. And for the sake of what? For the illusion that happiness can be found after whacking off a guy in a hit job, after putting an early end to hundreds of farmers’ lives and covering up the fact to defend your own wealth and power, after climbing the career ladder to success, sacrificing your entire life in the process, after spending a lifetime defending the guilty. This is the darkest shadow of modernity, and it is truly a heartbreaking, awful realization – for this is no mere fantasy. These are real people living real lives where you live. If this doesn’t send chills up your spine and fill your heart with tremendous sadness and regret, you’re not thinking about it in the way I want you to.

Michael has chased happiness for a lifetime, but has got only pain out of it. Standing there with those three magnificent creatures of nature, he seems to be broken open to the understanding that all he will ever need in the form of happiness is encapsulated in that moment of utter simplicity. He is free at last, in the open embrace of nature.

Michael reclaims his humanity on that hill, and goes back to bring U-North down, after an attempt has been made on his life  by the same men who killed his divinely inspired friend. He carries with him Arthur’s document that proves the heinous nature of U-North (despite all their feigned goodness) and so the cleansing fires of Arthur, or is it Shiva, are carried forth through the fixers rejuvenated conscience. The pathetic Karen Crowder breaks down when she realizes that all her work trying to cover up the horrific acts of her employer are in vain. She is a ghost of a woman, shaking in spasms on the floor. She has no friends, no love, nothing. Without her job, her life is over. She was not among the lucky ones to go crazy.

And so the movie comes to an end in a way that leaves me speechless. Michael, this shell of a man, has just reclaimed some of his innocence, integrity, human beauty and goodness, and we understand that things will never be the same again. In a symbolic scene, he takes the escalators out, in a shot where the cameras turn for the first time in the movie (steadycam and framed scenes drive the movie) as if to imply a change of perspective. He sits down in a cab, gives the driver $50 and tells him “just drive”. He doesn’t know where to, just that he wants to investigate the feeling of having done right and being in good standing with the forces of truth yet again.

Conclusion

Michael Clayton is a tragic movie about people who find themselves swept away by circumstances  – the stress and toils of modern life  – until one day they wake up and realize their souls are dead and their lives have turned evil. It is a portrait of human weakness, folly, and fragility, and paints a painfully realistic picture of a world where people consistenly act outside of their own conscience and basic humanity. Michael is a fixer, but fixing a human soul that has willfully destroyed itself is beyond his capacity.

The movie brings to light issues of male integrity and the price of truth. If living life in accordance with Truth required us to let go of absolutely everything, would we do it? Would you?

More than anything, though, Michael Clayton is a reminder that we must never let go of our innocence – our basic human goodness – no matter how old and experienced we grow. The day we lose the ability to see our loved ones and the world anew every time we open our eyes is the day our life becomes a parade of horrors.

Love and truth are the ultimate priorities. Arthur is right, we have been summoned. This is no mere fantasy. This is the reason we live and why most writers on masculinity will tell you that life starts only when we find a calling to serve the world through. Until that moment, we are vulnerable to the dark side, easily swayed by the temptations of immorality and the promise of an easy way out.

This review uses concepts from David Deida’s work.

Give me a purpose, any purpose

The promise of greater things arrives when Yuri witnesses a Russian mobster shootout in the fancy restaurant across the road. Suddenly – as if by divine intervention – he realizes his life’s calling: trading arms. After all, his reasoning goes, arms form one of humanity’s basic needs. Who is he to deny people having their needs met?

With new-found purpose, he sets out to create a global arms trading operation. He adopts his brother as his partner and after a rather costly courtship, he marries Ava; things are looking up for Yuri.

Yuri is really living it up now, spending money he never had, and financial ruin is looming. But Gorbachev comes to the rescue and Glasnost-love sweeps the mighty Soviet off its feet. Yuri is a happy man. Dmitrij Volkoff, Yuri’s uncle, is a major general in the Red Army, which is now out of funding, out of leadership and out of direction. Soon enough, AK-47 Kalasjnikovs, tanks and combat helicopters enter Yuri’s sales directory.

It’s not my business

Yuri understands that his actions have consequences, but numbs himself to the pain of living a dishonorable life by wrapping himself in the shell of an infinite stream of rationalizations. «It’s not our business», he repeats as his mantra every time he witnesses the consequences of his actions. «I don’t want people to die. I wish that they miss, as long as they fire those bullets», he tells Interpol agent Jack Valentine – a man of integrity who is hellbent on nailing him. And he’s not even joking.

Yuri is in a cocoon. He is cranking up his bad karma, but is consciously turning away from feeling the consequences, perhaps postponing it for some time in the future, when he «spontaneously becomes a better man». There is a danger that we too sometimes succumb to the same hesitation to get real with ourselves. There is a danger that we settle for a life we don’t like, stripped of integrity, vision and proactive action, because we fear what it will mean to confront our lives with the discernment of truth. I see it often, in myself and others.

And it is here that it is helpful to explore the concept of karma a little further. This perennial wisdom comes to us from the spiritual lineages of the East and is thought of as a universal law, just like gravity, that describes cause (your action) and effect (the result of your action). Men, it seems, have a deep aversion to change. It seems to be hardwired in us. And this points to an intuitive understanding of karma: when we resist changing the deeply imprinted habits of our psyche, it’s because we know that the minute we change course, we will be confronted with all the karma we’ve saved up while denying our deepest calling for so long. We intuitively know that changing our course is not a small matter impacting just one decision, but that breaking with our pattern to make that one different choice means changing our lives altogether – working our asses off for the rest of our earthly existence to better ourselves, or to crumble up in fear, all out of integrity, living out the rest of our days as mere zombies.

Both alternatives seem to suck ass, so we don’t step up to the challenge, settling instead for the numbness and mediocrity that are the norm for many of our brothers. And then we pretend to be great in our own minds – mediocrity may lead to narcissism, as we often need a way to compensate for our lack. In Lord of War, this is subtly hinted at through the use of religious imagery – golden bullet around the neck, cross-shaped pier etc. Could it be that Yuri considers himself a martyr, taking the crucible of trading arms on himself, so that others won’t have to?

If we DO break away from our pattern, though, we will experience what the Greeks called ecstacis (standing to the side of), the physical sensation of energy-release that comes from breaking with illusion to align ourselves with truth. With ecstacis as our ally, the tables turn in our favour, unknown to the many who never experience it, or who consider it merely delightful flukes. The degree of ecstacis – ecstacy – in our lives signal the degree to which we are truly being ourselves, and as ecstacis is the process of standing to the side of ego to experience our soul, it is our own resonsibility to claim it. No-one will give it to us.

Seeking safety in what we master

Yuri is powerful and successful in his own right, but underneath the varnish of success, he is a little, vulnerable boy seeking approval. This is evident in the conversation with Ava, when she discovers the true nature of his work. As she pushes him to explain his motivations, he confesses “It’s not about the money. It’s because,” he says with the look of a twelve-year old who wants a puppy for his birthday “I’m good at it.”

This is a key scene. Yuri Orlov is supplying weapons to atrocious wars all over the world, not because he is an inherently despicable human being. Rather, he does it because he’s good at it. He does it because it gives him the sense of not being a failure. Because it lets him lead a lifestyle that people envy. He does it so that he won’t have to face up to the fact that behind the facade, he feels like a failure of a human being. This is a very vulnerable moment.

Only a woman, only Ava, could coax that confession out of him. One of the feminine’s gifts to the masculine is its ability to soften the tension to let the masculine’s heart shine through. Yuri really does love his wife. All the other encounters he has with women in the movie show him feeling empty, or showing self-restraint. Ava is a good woman, and helps Yuri retain some connection with his own heart. But there’s some truth to Jack Valentine’s claim that she is his trophy wife. They’re in a dependancy relationship (DD1), where he depends on her to look good and to receive the nurturing, feminine gifts of love, and she on him to receive money and support.

When Ava threatens to leave him (“I have failed at most things, but I won’t fail at being a human”), Yuri changes his life, going legit for sixth months. But Andre Baptiste, president of Liberia, tyrant of unmatched cruelty, and former customer, shows up on his doorstep requiring his «extraordinary resourcefulness» yet again. Yuri argues that he cannot fight his own nature, so against his better judgement, he picks up arms-trading yet again.

I want to look closer at this claim. Is it true that it is «in his nature» to trade arms? Well, it seems clear that he wasn’t as fulfilled by the drudgery of going legit as he was by being an arms trader. It seemed to be too much work and too «common». Yuri clearly wants the feeling of playing it big, of living life at the edge, of making an impact on the world, so arms trading is better than dealing in oil and timber. He knows that what he’s doing is totally wrong, and it’s eating him up inside, but he knows he would rather make a bad impact on the world than none at all, even if the cost is his soul.

This is an important and fascinating observation. The masculine thrives on being challenged and has a fascination with death, as it represents the essential masculine longing for freedom. And there seems to be something about weapons that brings forth some primal, soul-level quality of the masculine. Weapons represent the same piercing quality as the penetrating force of masculine energy. And where that piercing quality of the masculine unfolds in its full capacity in the fewest of men, weaponry provides a quick shortcut. A gun gives us the power to take lives at will, which wakes up a very primordial part of the masculine. In spiritual traditions, the primary motivation of the masculine is seen as the desire to transcend life and earthly concerns altogether, to merge with the nothingness of existence, and in essence become God. Taking lives is in most cases a perversion of this principle of transcendence.

And while I point out that, I want to emphasize that I believe guns are inherently dishonorable weapons, unlike e.g the samurai sword. The sword is a spiritual weapon, and represents a symbiotic relationship between metal and flesh, craftsmanship and battle prowess, pitting its wielder face to face with his own mortality every time he strikes his enemy to the ground. This is an intimate moment, requiring great courage. The gun, however, requires little courage, and allows its wielder to avoid the feeling of his own mortality. This, I believe, is how modern warfare ended up without honor, and just a lot of rationalizations. The further away the solider can be from his «kill», the less honor he will have, and the less he will face the reality of his own mortality.

Both my sons are dead

What happened when Yuri went legit, was that he tasted a normal, conformist lifestyle, and didn’t like it. DD1, that is the macho jerk, is inherently more masculine than DD2, the man who has become more integrated by developing his feminine. It’s a paradox that a macho DD1 man will often be truer to his word than a DD2 man, as he is more strongly masculine, and hence puts more emphasis on keeping it than adapting to the ebbs and flows of his emotions. Yuri points this out when he says «Say what you will of warlords and dictators. They tend to have a highly developed sense of order, and always pay their bills on time.»

There is a potential pitfall in early masculine development. When men who live deeply immoral lives set out to better themselves, according to DD1-2-3, he will have to go through a period of sensitizing himself to his and others’ emotions, and put more and more emphasis on what’s socially acceptable, than what he himself desires. On some level, the male psyche knows this, which is why the process of growing from DD1 to DD2 is so undesirable to the macho man. Feminine women may become less attracted to him, and he will feel lots of pain, as the karmic seeds ripen in a consciousness that is now prepared. But DD2 is fertile ground for DD3, where the masculine power re-emerges, filled to the brim with love, vision and honor.

Yuri is a little right and a little wrong when he claims it is in his nature to sell arms. But definitely it is in his nature to be a very masculine man, who is afraid of letting go of his external sources of validation, his feelings of purpose, and embracing the feeling of wimpiness of DD2.

In the end, the inevitable plays out. Yuri talks Vitaly into coming along on one final job, and they end up in Sierra Leone, supplying guns to self-proclaimed freedom fighters. «Often the most barbaric atrocities happen when both sides proclaim themselves freedom fighters,» Yuri points out. But Vitaly cannot go through with the job, as he realizes it will lead to the slaughter of a nearby refugee camp. Vitaly is a Lover archetype and cares about those people. He has a good heart, more open and feminine than his brother’s, and going through with the job is suicide of the soul. So he sabotages the job – and gets shot. At this point, Yuri becomes dead to himself and his family. He has been provided with so many chances to clean up his act, his conscience has sent him so many warning signals, yet he has pressed on with his immoral life. «Both my sons are dead,» his mother comments with great sadness as he phones them to offer his apologies.

Conclusion

Yuri considered himself merely a piece in a game he didn’t even like himself, and refused to claim responsibility for his actions, because the game would merely replace him with someone else. It’s a familiar theme in many lives. We embrace our immorality or mediocrity by failing to claim responsibility for our lives. We avoid feeling the hurt and despair for as long as possible. In the end, the habitual tendencies are so strong that even honest attempts become like turning a freight ship with a 1hp engine. Yurio is now a dead man, dead in his heart, free to live out his days as little more than a zombie. And only his unlikely tears will open the door ajar again.

«You know who’s gonna inherit the earth? Arms dealers. Because everyone else is gonna be too busy killing each other. That’s the secret to survival. Never go to war. Especially with yourself,» Yuri ends.

There is wisdom here. Never go to war with yourself. So let’s find those places where we are fighting ourselves and then hone in on them like banshees, sowing the seeds for future joy and freedom. After all, do you like the alternative?