Michael

I have enjoyed John Travolta in nearly every part he has played. When I heard that he was going to be the Archangel, Michael, I knew I didn’t want to miss it. I saw it and I liked it and I didn’t think anything more about it for several years. Then it struck me that most of the screen time of the movie is spent on things that have nothing at all to do with the plot. That interested me.

If you arrange all the events of the plot, some explicit and others only implied, you get something like this. Michael, the Archangel (THE Michael) likes earth and wants an excuse to come back. He makes a bet with someone. He tells it as the old story of the North Wind and the Sun betting who can get a man to remove his coat. In this story, someone—Michael doesn’t say who but he is an advocate of coercion—bets that by treating Frank Quinlan (William Hurt) harshly, he can get Quinlan to open his heart to love. It doesn’t seem all that plausible, but there must be a bet so Michael can come to earth. Michael plays “the sun” in this bet. His idea is that Quinlan can be brought to vulnerability and love in a more caring way.

So Michael comes to earth in response to Pansy Milbank’s insistent prayers that the bank not be allowed to foreclose on her little motel. While Michael is there, Pansy writes to Quinlan, a reporter for a supermarket tabloid, saying the there is an angel living with her and that he should come and see it. Quinlan shows up with his buddy, Huey Driscoll (Robert Pastorelli) and a supposed “angel expert,” Nancy Winters (Andie McDowell). All are satisfied that Michael is, in fact, an angel and they get him to agree to go to Chicago with them. He gets them to agree to go by car. “We need more time,” he says, not saying what the “more time” is for. We know that it is so he can shine on Quinlan long enough for him to take his jacket off.

At that point, all the rest of the movie happens. Quinlan and Winters fall in love. Then Michael dies (goes home) and they fall out of love again. This shows good judgment on Winters' part because Quinlan instantly returns to being the cold manipulative SOB he was at the beginning of the story.

Now comes the part that really interested me this time. Michael is gone. Quinlan has been fired from his job. He and Winters are “over.” Quinlan and his buddy Driscoll meet at a bar and discuss all that happened. All those days and nights of unforgettable wonder.

Quinlan.: As far as I’m concerned, it never happened.
Driscoll: But we were there. We saw it.
Quinlan: No. Never happened.
Driscoll: So…where’s your raincoat? (he gave it to Michael)
Quinlan: It never happened and you know why? Because if it happened, I’d have to believe that wonderful and unaccountable things could happen to me for no reason at all. And I don’t want to believe that. I refuse to believe that such things are possible. So I resolutely deny what you and I both saw and lived for all those days.

What Quinlan actually says is played out on the screen as an alternative and unacceptable chain of events, but I have described what it really means. He’s right, in a way. If he continues to remember all those events with Michael, he would have to believe in the possibility of a fundamentally different life than he is living.

It is easier to deny the facts you know are true than it is to allow for the possibility wonderful gifts you didn’t deserve.

Fortunately for Quinlan—and for Winters as well—Michael hasn’t “gone home” yet and he has not because his work isn’t done. Really, that means he hasn’t yet won the bet, but the plot requires him to be more serious, here at the end. So Michael leads Quinlan on a wild goose chase through Chicago and simultaneously leads Winters on a similar goose chase, the result of which is that they run into each other on the street corner where both thought Michael was. They reconcile. Quinlan “opens his heart to love.” Michael wins the bet. And the movie is over.