Roth Films, Screen Gems, TriStar Pictures,
Greg Kinnear, Kelly Reilly, Connor Corum, Thomas Haden Church, Jacob Vargas, Nancy Sorel, Lane Styles
Based on the New York Times bestselling book Greg Kinnear play Todd Burpo, a small town pastor in Nebraska, whose 4 year old son becomes very ill. He slips into unconsciousness and nearly dies, sorely testing his faith. But when the boy returns home, he begins telling stories of how he visited heaven and of the things he saw. Many of these stories he could not have possibly known, and certain events that he didn’t even know about he was able to discuss after learning about them during his visit to heaven. This obviously causes a lot of confusion among their friends and especially the congregation as they try to figure out whether it’s really true or if their pastor has gone off the deep end. .
This is obviously a film with strong religious content. Some people will hate that part of it, but it’s not all up in your face. Greg Kinnear presents a minister with a lot of good thoughts, but some serious doubts, and his wife has even more doubts. It appears that the child could be spouting things that he’s heard or things that he would imagine from the religious training that he is exposed to, but some of these things are so amazing, that the writer seems to conclude that it must be real. It is a touching story, and the emotion is pretty high, but at the same time it’s kind of reassuring that there is a purpose for all of this, and that the things we believe may actually be literally true. Pastor Burpo basically just tells the story of what happens an allows you to decide for yourself what to make of it, and as that goes, it’s a very interesting story. When something unusual happens in our lives, does the conclusion we draw depend on what we wish or hope to be true, or are we able to leave our biases aside and make a logical decision. It seems the answer is somewhere in between as sometimes we really try hard to prove the outcome we want to happen, but sometimes the evidence is just so strong that you can’t ignore it. It’s a fascinating story and I enjoyed the movie so I rated it rather highly. I recommend this just for the experience.
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
