There have been other reviews that I have commented on Keanu Reeves’ acting.  There are many films of his that come to mind, the ones for which he is most famous and which I need not enumerate.  What can be taken from them as a whole is that he has more range than you think.  He is typically thought of as an action star, and for good reason.  Between the John Wick and Matrix franchises, not to mention Point Break (1991) or Speed (1994), I feel most associate him with guns and explosions than any other type of cinematic material.  The one I turn to in order to underscore his range is Destination Wedding (2018).  Still, that one comes from later in his career, and one could argue that his comedic performance is the result of being a veteran of many productions.  In other words, to borrow the naval phrase, he has learned the ropes of the dramatic arts.  Recently, I saw an early example of his attempt at branching out, A Walk in the Clouds (1995).  It is not bad, and (as is my preference) it made this Catholic think, especially about vocation.  Some of his line deliveries are little clunky, but any time I see something that can touch my heart, it will get a passing grade from me.

Before Sergeant Paul Sutton (Keanu Reeves) can have A Walk in the Clouds, he must return to his wife, Betty Sutton (Debra Messing), upon being discharged from the United States Army following World War II.  There is nothing worse (though I have no frame of reference) than coming home from defending your country and being stood up at the San Francisco docks by your spouse.  Then again, as we learn as Paul disembarks, they had known each other only a couple days before being wedded and him being sent to the Pacific to fight the Japanese.  He is eventually greeted by Betty upon entering their apartment, though she evidently did not expect him as she is sitting clad only in her underwear.  Neither did she read any of his daily letters, keeping them tucked away in a box.  This becomes an issue when she expects him to return to his former job as a traveling chocolate salesmen, for which she had secured him a promotion.  He wants to do something else, but he feels bound to honor her wishes.  Get ready for a lot of such behavior from Paul.  He even dons his uniform as he heads out the next morning because she believes it will bring him more business.  On the first leg of his trip out to Sacramento to begin his peacetime affairs, he bumps into Victoria Aragon (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón).  She is a graduate student traveling home to her family in Napa Valley.  He helps her when she has trouble with her suitcase even though it results in her throwing up on him.  In the commotion, they accidentally swap tickets, meaning he has to get off the train before his destination.  As fate would have it (or, as I prefer, God would have it), she is at the same stop, which they discover when they board the same bus.  Once more he comes to her assistance, defending her honor when she is harassed by two other men, and being thrown off for his troubles.  As he walks along, he once more encounters her, this time crying on a deserted road.  With his gentle coaxing, she tells him about how she had been in love with her professor (not pictured) and had gotten pregnant by him.  On top of this, he has written to her to say that he wants nothing to do with her, and now she is coming home to face her family.  She is sure that her father, Alberto Aragon (Giancarlo Giannini), will be furious with her.  In the hopes of saving her some embarrassment, Paul offers to pose as her husband.  He can spend one night with them, then leave in the morning.  It is not ideal, but such things happen, they tell themselves.  Their reception, at least on Alberto’s part, is exactly as she had imagined.  Making matters worse, aside from being a gringo, at dinner Paul reveals that he is an orphan.  This is an affront to their ancient Mexican family, at least according to Alberto.  All the same, the rest of the family likes Paul.  The next morning, as he is about to get back on the road as he and Victoria agreed, he is stopped by her grandfather, Don Pedro Aragon (Anthony Quinn).  Don Pedro shows Paul the vine that had been brought with their ancestors from Spain to the New World.  Don Pedro also tells Paul that today is harvest day and that if the former soldier leaves now, his departure will prove every mean thing Alberto said about him.  Once more with Victoria’s honor in mind, Paul stays and helps with the work.  During the pressing, seeing the joy the family puts into the group effort, he begins to fall for Victoria.  Before anything untoward can happen, though, he stops himself, saying that he is not free and it would not be right by her.  The next day sees another attempt at departure, but once more Don Pedro intervenes, this time with a bottle of brandy.  Prior to this, there had been a bitter moment when Paul and Victoria thought about the hopelessness of their situation.  Now, with some liquid courage in him and Don Pedro’s encouragement, Paul sings to her ala Romeo.  While sweet, especially with Alberto coming around to liking him, Paul realizes that what he is doing is wrong and finally walks away.  In the morning there is a festival in town celebrating the new vintage, and Paul is there waiting for a bus.  Before he can leave, Alberto announces to everyone present that there will be a wedding ceremony for Paul and Victoria.  It is at this moment that Victoria realizes that they can no longer lie, and Paul departs.  One could say this subsequent development is convenient, since when he finally gets home he finds Betty in bed with another man and annulment papers on hand to end their marriage.  She is confused by his elation as she watches him promptly exit.  Upon getting to the Aragon estate, Paul immediately asks Alberto for Victoria’s hand.  Alberto is raging drunk, unfortunately, and swings a lantern in anger at Paul.  When the light misses, it breaks on the ground and sets the entire vineyard on fire.  All appears lost until Paul hikes up to the original Aragon vine.  Bringing it back, Alberto finds that it is still living and Paul is fully accepted into the family.

What is sweet about the ending of A Walk in the Clouds is that Paul finally gets the family he had always wanted.  This is part of his attraction to Victoria, something that had been missing his entire life.  God desires us to be part of something bigger than ourselves, a community.  This starts with our family, and He calls some of us to go on to make our own little community, or to join a religious one.  In either case you are doing God’s will.  As a pro-life Catholic, I was also pleased with how Paul described Victoria’s baby.  Of course, there will be some that will seize on her line about how tradition dictates that she should be ashamed, and there is nothing more traditional than Catholicism.  There is no escaping that conceiving outside of wedlock is a sin.  Any parent that has the spiritual well-being of their child at heart will be upset to witness their daughter commit something that separates them from God.  It is hard to see that this is what is on Alberto’s heart in how he reacts to his daughter’s decisions, but, God be praised, he admits to the wound that triggered his behavior.  It is fear, not of her missing out on Heaven, but of change.  The fact that he has this revelation at the end also underscores another aspect of how society misinterprets how Catholics treat those who have children outside of marriage. It is simply that, as we see in the movie, the story does not end with that initial anger.  To be sure, there have been instances when such news has come to light and a daughter has earned the eternal scorn of at least one parent, if not both.  This is not in keeping with Catholic teaching.  As Paul says, all life is a miracle, no matter the circumstances, and should be treated as a Divine gift from God.  It is preferable to have a child with mother and father present, and I appreciate the fact that he is willing to at least give that façade to her.  It makes it that much sweeter that he ends up being with her at the conclusion.  This might be a specific set of events, but I hope any Christian man will react in a similar way if presented with such a scenario.

Indeed, I found myself measuring myself against Paul in A Walk in the Clouds.  This is probably not fair because, as the title suggests, it is more fantasy than reality.  Still, what we can take away from his behavior is his commitment to doing right.  This is something that can be applied to anything life brings us.  And I hope it brings you this movie, and that you watch it.