Daily Dialogue — May 23, 2018

Jed: The question is, do I have a God complex.
Riley: Dr. Kessler says yes.
Jed: …which makes me wonder if this “lawyer” has any idea what kind of grades one must receive in college to be accepted at a top medical school, if you have the vaguest clue on how talented one must be to lead a surgical team. I have an M.D. from Harvard, I am board certified in cardio-thoracic medicine and trauma surgery, I have been awarded citations from seven different medical boards in New England, and I am never, ever sick at sea. So I ask you; when someone goes into that chapel and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn’t miscarry or that their daughter doesn’t bleed to death or that their mother doesn’t suffer acute neural trauma from postoperative shock, who do you think they’re praying to? Now, go ahead and read your Bible, Dennis, and you go to your church, and, with any luck, you might win the annual raffle, but if you’re looking for God, he was in operating room number two on November 17, and he doesn’t like to be second guessed. You ask me if I have a God complex. Let me tell you something: I am God.

— Malice (1993), screenplay by Aaron Sorkin and Scott Frank, story by Aaron Sorkin and Jonas McCord

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Aaron Sorkin.

Trivia: One of a cycle of thrillers made during the early 1990s which were set around husband and wife characters. The films include Malice (1993), Deceived (1991), Shattered (1991), Mortal Thoughts (1991), Consenting Adults (1992), Unlawful Entry (1992), Presumed Innocent (1990), Guilty as Sin (1993), Sleeping with the Enemy (1991) and A Kiss Before Dying (1991).

Dialogue On Dialogue: Sorkin has a thing for depositions as in Malice and The Social Network, and his approach for the character being deposed is “The best defense is a good offense.”