Oh, c’mon; it’s time to get real

We here in the “reality-based community,” a group recently defined by a senior Bush administration official as people who “believe that solutions emerge from judicious study of discernible reality,” have had a hard time of it lately. What with all the changes around here, we hardly recognize the place anymore. Somehow, in the last four years, NASCAR has become the symbol of all that is good and pure; TV executives have taken it upon themselves to eradicate “indecent” phrases like “reproductive rights” from the airwaves; and we’ve had to accept that no one will ever correct the president’s pronunciation of “nuclear,” ever.

Depressing? They don’t call them blue states for nothing.

On the bright side, psychologists have started to look into the idea that depression could be the natural byproduct of a realistic outlook, a constant that’s come to be known as “depressive realism.” (Though, as British psychologist Richard Bentall has joked, “it is the unrealism of happy people that is more noteworthy, and surely clear evidence that such people should be regarded as psychiatrically disordered.”) In other words, it’s possible that we members of the reality-based community are realistically depressed, and that happy people are crazy.

Of course, I’m not a psychologist. But I can say that 2004 was the year of depressive realism in film, and that many of the year’s best movies made heroes of rational malcontents, from Jim Carrey’s Joel Barish in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” to Paul Giamatti’s Miles Raymond in “Sideways” to Jason Schwartzman’s Albert Markovski in “I {heart} Huckabees” to “The Incredibles’ ” Mr. Incredible.

My favorite movies asked audiences to side with the sourpusses, heretics, instigators and all the gloomy Cassandras railing against our weird new world. It was almost indescribably exhilarating to be invited to care about a depressed unpublished novelist-turned-wine bore; a deluded environmentalist poet; an eccentric, bisexual scientist; a couple of politico- corporate muckrakers; a superhero gone to seed in a world that celebrates mediocrity; an oceanographer past his prime (“The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou”) and a middling novelist in a disappointing marriage (“Before Sunset”). These characters didn’t overcome an obstacle so much as they looked back, took stock, freaked out and wallowed in a humiliating sense of powerlessness. They practically drowned in longing for the people they once were, the people they thought they’d be and the world they thought they lived in.

The heroes I liked most this year didn’t chase money, success or sexual triumph so much as they sought some kernel of truth and meaning in a world that had become unrecognizable to them. They butted up against ignorance, indifference and inanity (Giamatti’s Miles, Liam Neeson’s “Kinsey” and Schwartzman’s Markovski, to name a few), yet still felt the seductive pull of an unexamined life in the mainstream. Hanging out with slick businessmen (Jude Law’s Brad in “Huckabees,” Jeff Goldblum’s Alistair in “The Life Aquatic”) and shallow TV actors (Thomas Haden Church’s Jack in “Sideways”), though, only made their Philistine fatigue and numskull envy more acute.

They tried to treat it by indulging fully, often petulantly, in their alienation, orneriness and dejection. They dabbled in pharmacology, laser technology, existential philosophy, Pinot Noir -- everything, in fact, except religion. The two of my favorites that did -- Pedro Almodovar’s “Bad Education” and, barely, Alejandro Amenabar’s “The Sea Inside” -- pitted rationalism against clericalism, denounced abuse of power cloaked in sanctimoniousness and argued for an individual’s right to control his own body.

Is there anything to be made of all this cinematic depressive realism now, as the year draws to a close and the moronic media flaps continue to rage? Maybe it’s just this: that 2004 was the year good movies helped us rethink our approach to an increasingly unreal reality. In both features and documentaries, fragmented narratives singled out truths that would have otherwise gotten lost under the seamless gloss of the big picture, and labored to expose the fakey cocoon that’s lately blocked out real life.

In other words, it was the year of the depressed man against the universe -- meaning, of course, the mega- corporations and their political superfriends. “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Super Size Me’s” muckraking crusaders took on the powers-that-be and managed, if not to influence an election, then at least to get McDonald’s to clean up its menu.

“Huckabees” opened on the same day the papers ran a story about the building of a Wal-Mart megastore, conveniently located on an ancient archeological site near Mexico City, and something about that was cheering. It was a coincidence right out of a movie.

The Times’ movie critics can be contacted at calendar.

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