Niccol's screenplay spins the standard underdog story in enough new directions to make us care what happens to Ethan Hawke's bold and beautiful Vincent Freeman, but the more interesting character journey is undertaken by Jude Law's crippled Jerome Morrow. What happens to an individual engineered to perfection who has been trained from childhood to believe he will always succeed, when that capacity to win violently vanishes? Jerome's unsuccessful attempt at suicide in the wake of earning a silver, second-place medal in swimming crushes his legs but fails to squash a resilient depression produced by a perfectionist society unwilling to value effort, only victory.

Jerome's proves an ultimately fatal posture towards life, a stance adopted by many across time who have convinced themselves that social or personal perfection will, some day, be attained by human efforts. We demand that our politicians, televangelists, and philanthropists spout such humanistic optimism, and decry those willing to suggest that they--and their constituents--are not only needy but intrinsically defective. We prefer circulating a lie that, in the short run, turns us from recognition of our own brokenness, a lie that will ultimately turn us too from the saving hand of a Creator who holds the patent on perfection.

This is not to deny that we were created to improve ourselves: success stories like that of the aptly named Vincent Freeman rightly inspire us to freely, courageously strive towards that which appears to have been placed out of reach by circumstance. In straining towards success and the attendant illusion of lasting happiness, however, we must place our final hope in divine Grace instead of our own efforts. As noted by the Andrea del Sarto of Robert Browning's imaginings, "a man's reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what's a heaven for?"