Helena Mary Cole

It seems weird to say this, but this Christmas season, I got more of a Christmasy feeling from watching Die Hard than I got from watching A Christmas Story the week before.

I make no apology for writing about Christmas on January 5. In Catholic culture, it is technically still the Christmas season until Candlemas, which is on February 2 and celebrates the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple in Jerusalem, forty days after he was born. Also. while we celebrated our mass for the Feast of the Epiphany yesterday, Epiphany is really always January 6, the official twelfth day of Christmas. Don’t pack up the tree until after the twelve drummers have been drumming, but it’s also within reason to leave it up till Candlemas. The point is, I’m within bounds to be writing about Christmasy things today.

Every year, much like most folks, I have my list of Christmas movies I want to watch at some point during the season. A lot of men out there like to lobby for watching Die Hard as a way of getting out of watching the Hallmark Christmas movies, I guess. I’ve noticed in recent years that a fair few male online influencers have been defending it as “a Christmas classic.” I agree. But fair warning before I get going on this: I watch Die Hard like a girl. Or at least, I watch it like a storyteller, which is probably not the lens that most of the defenders use.

But I am perfectly convinced that Die Hard is exactly the kind of story that Dr. Martin Shaw was talking about when he said, “Stories tell us to keep attending to the grace.” You can line up all the facts in the science lab or by following the news or what have you, but that’s an awfully bleak way to look at the world, or to look into the foreseeable future. Facts tend to be notoriously blind to the real way of life – there’s always at least one factor that facts can’t tell you about because nobody ever foresees it. Until you read a good work of fiction, or even just hear a good story, even in movie format, you’ll never know: there’s always Something.

“Some beast is always slouching off towards Bethlehem. Everything falls apart. The child crawls into the snow and is not seen. But over time a shoot will emerge from a heap of ashes. A girl will walk back from the forest speaking a language no one has ever heard. This is less optimism, more obeservation.” (From Courting the Wild Twin by Martin Shaw)

One Christmas Eve in L.A., terrorists hijacked an entire company Christmas party in order to steal $600 million from the vault downstairs, but what our head terrorist, Hans Gruber could never have anticipated was that a trained New York City police officer, who just flew in to spend Christmas with his estranged wife and kids, was in the private bathroom trying to deal with jet lag before joining the party. He got into the back stairway unseen. “I’m just a fly in the ointment, Hans,” John McClane said. He’s the one factor that evil didn’t count on – the one factor that ensures it will turn out well. He’s the grace.

There really is some truly admirable storytelling here. Think of John McClane’s disappointment on discovering that his wife, after only six months of separation, has gone back to using her maiden name. He’s going through the company directory and can’t find her under “McClane.” You, the viewer, can understand what that felt like to him (Bruce Willis gives an excellent performace), and it does not look like grace. It has none of grace’s trappings, it only produces a tangled mess of hurt and resentment. And yet, if she hadn’t reverted to her maiden name, then the whole story might have turned out differently. Evil may have won. We don’t know. All we know is that it’s a good thing she did.

Ms. Holly Gennaro, formerly known as Mrs. Holly McClane, turns the photograph of her husband and kids face down on the desk. Such a little thing, and yet how brimming with import. This one action tells us, very simply, something very important about the state of her marriage, without having to say a word. AND ALSO, later on, when Hans Gruber is sitting at that same desk, and it’s vitally important to the story that he doesn’t find out that Ms. Gennaro is McClane’s wife, the fact that the photograph is face down quite likely means the difference between life and death for a lot of her colleagues.

What a fine bit of storytelling! Beyond brilliant. One cannot admire it enough.

Smart woman, Ms. Gennaro. One believes she well deserved to rise so quickly in the company ranks, based on how intelligently she handles the entire hostage situation. She and her husband actually make a great team in this movie, even though you don’t see them together for most of its duration.

I love the part where she comes to realize that all the things that irritated her about her husband are exactly his best way of thwarting the terrorists. “Nobody but John could make anyone that crazy,” she says, observing one of the bad guys throwing a little tantrum.

This year’s viewing was the first time I noticed this: John McClane’s entrance, near the end, after his undershirt has long been thrown away, after he’s dirty and bloody and limping on a severely lacerated foot, and he’s backlit by an extremely bright spotlight and flying sparks, is reminiscent of the entrance of a saint or angel. Think Liv Tyler’s first appearance in The Fellowship of the Ring, with the blinding light behind her, which was purposefully meant to bring St. Raphael to mind.

My first thought on seeing this was, “Oh my gosh, that’s kind of heavy-handed, isn’t it?” John McClane is not your conventional angel or saint, holding a machine gun of all things, having used a distictly unsaintlike vocabulary throughout the film, and with a fair amount of killing behind him, for one night. Self-defense killing, though. I guess the avenging angel image fits. It is a movie set at Christmas time, after all, and John McClane fits the description of the invisible guardian, working tireless with much sacrifice to keep everybody safe, not unlike a guardian angel. You can see the evidence that he’s somewhere in the building, because terrorists keep getting killed and things keep blowing up when they’re not supposed to, but but at the same time, his presence is elusive. Like I said, he’s the grace factor. I guess it’s fitting in a way.

And so, I felt all Christmasy when the movie ended. Attending to the grace is a huge part of Christmas. Not that A Christmas Story isn’t the same, in a less dramatic way. Ralphie didn’t know that, while all the women in his life were dead set against his getting the Red Ryder BB gun, his dad had enjoyed owning one as a kid, and so had no problem buying one for his son for Christmas. Yet in true way of dads the world over, he didn’t say a word about it. Unexpected grace.

Stories teach us to attend to the grace.

Or, if you will (I feel another quotation coming):

Henslowe: Let me explain to you about the theatre business, Mr. Fennyman. Its natural state is one of insurmountable obstacles running headlong towards imminent disaster.

Fennyman: So, what should we do?

Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.

Fennyman: How will it turn out well?

Henslowe: I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

(From Shakespeare in Love)

And well, if you ever feel like your life is in a natural state of insurmoutabe obstacles running towards disaster, you’re not alone, but if all you’re going to look at is the facts, that’s one damn discouraging way to live. As for me, I will read stories, and write them, too. And attend to the grace, if I possibly can. Grace often does not look like grace when we first clap eyes on it. In fact, sometimes it looks like the Worst Possible Thing. It may reveal itself as grace given time, but then again, it might not, while this world lasts.

All the same, it will turn out well.

It’s a mystery.