If you told me, a year ago, that I would be
willingly writing an article about Keanu Reeves, I would have called
you a liar. Yet, I found out about his life, and my whole perspective on
him changed forever. His is a life accentuated by constant tragedy, and
it is hard not to admire his bravery once you find out what he has been
through. He is also incredibly generous and altruistic, and these acts
often get overshadowed, or never spoken of at all. So I figured I would
take some time to talk about a man whose life you would not wish on an
enemy. A man whose strength, in real life, greatly outshines some of the
heroes he plays on the big screen. This is the staggering true story of
Keanu Reeves. Might want to keep some tissues nearby. These
are Shakespearean levels of tragedy at play here.
So what really started all the hubub was the sad Keanu meme. You know, someone took this photo:
I thought maybe his egg salad went bad or something.
And people quickly latched into it, and did all sorts of awesome things to it.
Like this:
Sad Keanu hates when the opposing team scores.
And this:
It is hard to be depressed around that many cats.
But the picture begged the question: Why was Keanu so sad? Especially when he is eating? Eating is awesome!
So some people began to look into it, and
wouldn’t you know, he is sad. And with damn good reason, too. Every
single moment of the man’s life has been marred by tragedy and loss.
Loss on such an epic scale, that if you read about it in a book, you
would honestly think the author was “overdoing” it. Allow me to put it
in perspective. Think of every major moment in a person’s life. Now add a
tragedy to every one of those situations. Honestly, I wish I was
kidding.
Start in his youth, when his Dad abandoned
his family. Obviously that will instill trust and abandonment issues in
someone right away. An act like that sets the tone for whole play,
unfortunately.
He isn’t scorning their love. He just can’t relate to it.
Next up, his best friend and fellow actor, River Phoenix,
dies outside The Viper Room from a drug overdose when he was just
twenty three. Coming from someone who lost his best friend around the
same age, that is something you never, ever get over. It crawls inside
your heart and dies like a wounded animal, and that scent of death and
that sense of lingering sadness NEVER goes away from that kind of loss.
You starting to see the trend now? Wait, it gets way worse.
River Phoenix was an undeniable talent,
with James Dean levels of cool, and was a massive loss for all when he
passed away so young.
Fast forward to 1998. Keanu meets a woman,
Jennifer Syme, and he falls madly and passionately in love with. She
gets pregnant with his child in 1999. In his eyes, this is the ultimate.
His life is complete. Then, in 2000, the unthinkable happens. His baby
is delivered stillborn. As the result, Jennifer falls into a deep
postpartum depression, which Keanu can do little to shake her from.
Their romance cools off a little as a result of the loss, but the couple
remain close. But in 2001, his world is torn asunder yet again,
when Jennifer is killed instantly in a car accident. Alright, we need to
stop for a second and assess everything I just said.
I want you to really try to put on his
shoes for a second. That is a world painted black, floor to ceiling. A
world cast only in shadow. I felt loss on one-tenth of the scale he did,
and thought it was the worst a world could offer. Yet, his is a world
where EVERYONE he ever loved is taken from him. And brutally, no less.
Even writing this, I can feel my muscles tensing and a knot in my
stomach. How can one world be so cruel to one person? And you know what,
there was ONE moment, in ONE film, that stood out to me, even before I
knew any of this. One moment, from one film, that hinted to me there was
much more going on under the surface than anyone could have thought.
This moment, from The Devil’s Advocate.
The grief he displays in this scene foreshadowed his own by four years.
I always thought Keanu Reeves displayed
very few emotions when he would act. But that scene, even before I knew
his story, I knew he wasn’t feigning that grief. He pulled that from a
place that was real. And even then, the movie came out in 1997, which
was three years after the loss of his best friend, but four years BEFORE
the rest of his world would turn to ash.
Regarding the loss, Reeves has said that
the death of his child and his lover was “unfair” and “absurd”, but even
then, would you have handled it with such grace? I would have flipped a
thousand chairs, punched out twenty windshields, peed myself and then
fallen into a deep, drug-fueled depression, that would only end in my
untimely death. Yet, he just went on living. And acting. Never took a
break. And in that time, he played heroes. Always, the quite heroes.
Could you have worn a face like that amid all of that sadness?
Does the fact that he plays characters with a flat-affect make more sense to you now?
Also, his sister has Leukemia, and his brother has been in and out of jail his whole life.
And while it may seem I am just telling you
all of this just to tell you, that is not the case. I want you to think
about his acting career now. First off, in all honesty, when have you
seen him smile in the last decade? I had to think about it, but you
really don’t. Yet, he never takes time off. Never takes a breath. But,
when asked about happiness, Keanu Reeves does not mislead anyone. He
looks sad in pics because he is, justifiably. He has admitted that is
loss on such a massive scale, but you don’t run from it. Rather, you
embrace it and accept it as a part of life.
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