Based on the title alone, I was eager to watch Robert Machoian’s recently released film The Integrity of Joseph Chambers (rent on Amazon). Any movie with “integrity” in the title is automatically of interest in a world where the word has lost most meaning. Plus, I found Machoian’s previous film, The Killing of Two Lovers (which made my 2021 top 10 list), surprisingly hopeful and conservative in its view of marriage and family as something worth fighting for. Integrity stars the same lead actor, Clayne Crawford, and explores similar territory as Machoian’s previous acclaimed film.
Machoian is a photography professor at Brigham Young University and a Mormon, and he’s spoken of how his faith informs his films. Indeed, though Integrity isn’t a “faith-based film” or direct in its engagement with religion, it’s certainly one of the most theologically interesting indie films I’ve seen in some time—albeit from a Mormon, not Christian, perspective.
Though it’s a stressful film to watch, Integrity rewards the thoughtful viewer.
In Search of Masculine Identity
The film’s predawn opening scene sets a comical-ominous tone. We watch as a man, Joseph Chambers (Clayne Crawford), carefully shaves in front of a mirror, shaping a perfect Wyatt Earp mustache while he mugs for the mirror and repeats a line from the 1976 Clint Eastwood Western, The Outlaw Josey Wales: “Get ready, little lady. Hell is coming to breakfast.”
Chambers—who we later find out is an insurance salesman who moved his family to a rural Alabama town—then gets dressed, putting on what appear to be brand-new long johns, khaki pants, and an orange puffer vest straight out of an L.L.Bean catalog. His wife, Tess (Jordana Brewster), rightly makes fun of his getup and ridiculous stache then tries to dissuade him from his ill-advised plan for the day.
You see, Joseph is worried about the possibility that if doomsday comes, he won’t be able to protect his family—because all he knows how to do is sell insurance. He’s been learning from a friend how to operate guns and hunt for wild game, and on this day he’s decided to set out on a solo hunting expedition, borrowing his buddy’s rifle and truck. Though Tess pleads with him not to go, reminding him a novice hunter really shouldn’t do this alone, Joseph nevertheless insists. When he bids farewell to his wife and kids and heads out on his hunt, we brace ourselves. We know that whatever happens, it’s not going to be good.
From the opening mustache scene and through the entire film, the fraught question of modern male identity looms large. Though the doomsday-prep justification is Joseph’s stated reason for his solo hunt, it’s clear there are deeper psychological preoccupations at play. Indeed, Joseph Chambers in this film stands as a symbol of the struggles of men in a modern world where they don’t feel needed. It’s a world where men feel led to awkwardly manufacture styles (lumberjack shirts and beards), habits (Crossfit, ax throwing, ice baths), and tastes (single-malt whiskey, pipe smoking) in order to curate some bespoke form of mythological manhood. In comical early scenes, we watch the khaki-clad yuppie Joseph tromp through the forest as if living an Alone fantasy. Even though he’s only planning on being gone for the day (and never ventures beyond a short hike to his truck), he carries a huge camping cooler stocked with lunchable-style snacks and kids’ squeeze packs.
Joseph Chambers stands as a symbol of the struggles of men in a modern world where they don’t feel needed.
The film’s unnerving sound design (by Danish sound designer Peter Albrechtsen) includes all manner of nondiegetic sounds that lend the film a texture of interiority. We hear the applause of a crowd a few times when Joseph does something manly and right. At one point, he pauses from deer stalking to act out a baseball fantasy, playing the part of a Minnesota Twins pitcher in the 1991 World Series. The sound in these scenes is that of a radio announcer describing the baseball heroics. If these artistic choices seem surreal and almost dreamlike, it’s for a reason. The film feels often like a Freudian nightmare of a husband and father working through his deepest fears. Indeed, when the plot takes a turn into dark territory, Joseph himself expresses a desire to wake up from a situation that surely can’t be happening to him.
Spoilers ahead.
Good Intentions, Bad Decisions
By all accounts just a quaintly naive, well-intentioned family man, Joseph Chambers nevertheless ends up in a severe predicament when he wildly shoots his rifle into the deep forest, thinking he heard a deer. The source of the noise, however, and the unfortunate recipient of Joseph’s stray bullet, was a man who had set up camp in what Joseph assumed was the “private property” of his friend.
At this point, Integrity makes clear that the quest for masculine identity—for Joseph or any man—has more to do with how he responds to a crisis (especially one of his own making) than with whether he can grow a beard or score a 10-point buck. A man’s integrity is moral in nature, not stylistic. And for the rest of the film, we watch as Joseph’s integrity is tested.
What’s brilliant about the film’s taut script (only 90 minutes) and Crawford’s raw (largely wordless) performance, is that in a short span we see a man wrestle with huge moral calculations that will have lifelong consequences for himself, his wife, and his children. Here, Joseph’s quest for discovering manhood comes to a tipping point. What he does or doesn’t do has consequences not only for his own male ego but for those he’s vowed to love and protect. None of his options are great; all are costly.
As I’m husband and father too, Crawford’s performance deeply resonated with and unsettled me. Joseph makes bad, rash decisions throughout the film, but would I do any better in these circumstances? And when he eventually makes the right choice, would I have the humility to do the same?
Redemption at the River
The film’s turning point comes when Joseph is at a river, trying to wash blood off his hands, Macbeth style. It’s a potent theological scene—a guilty sinner doing his best to wash himself clean. When he plays out in his mind a future of excuses, rationalizations, and self-justifying image maintenance, however, he realizes the gospel of grace is better. Rather than foolishly defending his own name and reputation as a “good man,” he stands on the righteousness of the perfect man (who, coincidentally, shares his J. C. initials), receiving his free grace.
Repentance is what will free him. Owning his sin, receiving grace, recognizing he can’t save himself: this is integrity. He sees the best gift he can give his children isn’t his hunting skills in the event of the apocalypse, or even a comfortable middle-class life. The best thing he can give his children is a father’s example of humility, honesty, and integrity, even when it’s costly. This is true manhood at last.
The best thing he can give his children is a father’s example of humility, honesty, and integrity, even when it’s costly. This is true manhood.
The film’s final scene is one of the best in recent memory. It’s a gut punch that leaves it up to the viewer to interpret exactly what the “integrity” of Joseph Chambers ultimately entails. Some viewers might find endings like this frustrating; why don’t filmmakers make it crystal clear what happens after the screen goes black and what it means? But this disrespects the audience’s interpretive intelligence. I love what director Todd Field recently said in an interview about his Oscar-nominated film Tár: “Anybody that watches this film is the final filmmaker.” I suspect Machoian would share this view. We, the audience, ultimately “finish” Integrity—and the way we choose to script its final pages, and interpret the whole, reveals much about us.
In addition to the film’s ending, other intriguing questions are up to us to ponder. Is the whole thing a dream? Is this film—about a man with the initials J. C. who makes mistakes with a lethal weapon—really a redemptive piece about actor Clayne Crawford, whose birth name is Joseph Crawford and who was notoriously fired from the Fox show Lethal Weapon because of accusations of bad behavior? Is this film—about a man who wishes he’d done things differently but ends up owning his mistakes—a penance of sorts for Joseph (Clayne) Crawford?
I’m not sure. But I am sure this film deserves a bigger audience. We need more movies like this that engage art and theology in equal measure; films that ask audiences to think carefully about something beautiful but hard—integrity—that we’d all do well to think about more.
The Gospel Coalition