After making the mistake of drinking coffee way too late in the evening, I am now up trying to find ways to occupy myself until my body processes the rest of the caffeine that’s floating around in my veins and allows me to sleep. And so I thought I would just do a quick write-up on the movie I saw this afternoon, and you guys get to read about it. Lucky.
Okay, first and foremost, I want it to be clear that I did NOT go to see this film because it was some sort of Christian movie. In fact, I had no idea that it was until after it started, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Around 10 o’clock this morning, I got a call from my grandmother asking me if I’d like to go to the movies with her. She said she never goes anymore, and that there was some new film out she wanted to see called Fireproof . I agreed, of course (who among us could say “no” to their grandmother?) and looked up the times for the nearest theater on Fandango and we decided to catch an afternoon showing.
As for the film, Fandango didn’t have much to say about it, and I knew nothing. Being a Dave Ramsey budgeter, I hardly ever go out to the movies anymore and then being a Tivo owner, I no longer watch commercials so had not seen any trailers. So in essence, I was a totally blank slate going into this with no preconceived ideas or expectations of any kind.
The story centers around a firefighter named Caleb Holt (Kirk Cameron) and his wife, Catherine (Erin Bethea), whose marriage is on full-speed towards a divorce until Caleb’s father challenges him to hold-off on proceedings while he completes a 40-day “love dare.” Caleb reluctantly agrees, but finds it increasingly difficult as his wife appears to slip further away as a doctor at the hospital where she works begins to vie for her affections. Caleb presses on, however, encouraged by his father and a fellow firefighter and eventually the story meets its inevitable happy ending. The film is supported by some good comic relief in parts, and a decent score as well.
My first thought was that the people on screen (with the exception of Kirk Cameron) really couldn’t act very well. Then I started to see the major Christian references and quickly picked up on what kind of movie this was. Suddenly my grandmother’s interest in this film made a lot more sense.
Great, I thought, I’ve just unknowingly signed up to watch some sort of weird, cheesy, God-flick. Flashbacks of elementary school visits to “The Christian Cinema” in Ambler flooded over me coupled with the time I rented Left Behind (admittedly not one of my better movie choices). I sighed inwardly and decided to just relax and see if I can’t at least enjoy some aspect of it. At the very least, it would be kinda fun to see one of my favorite junior high crushes on the big screen for the first time since LIke Father, Like Son in 1987.
To my near-complete surprise, I found myself enjoying the film. The acting which at first seemed contrived, actually got better as the movie progressed…or I just stopped noticing that it was poor (which is probably more likely). I liked the characters with the exception of the doctor (whose only real contribution seemed to be that of the worst acting overall) but really found myself hoping for the happy ending.
Acting aside, my main criticism of the movie would be that it went on long after what I would have thought to be the natural end. I understand what they were trying to communicate in that excess time, but really feel it was unnecessary. The writers could’ve given the audience a little more credit to infer the rest themselves.
My other criticism isn’t so much specific to this movie in particular, but to these so-called “religious message” films as a whole. I appreciate whole-heartedly what they are trying to accomplish – and indeed I would love to incorporate “The Love Dare” as part of my marriage (should I ever have one someday) but I just don’t understand why Christians feel the need to be so insanely blatant in their storytelling that they end up painting themselves into a niche corner and risk potentially turning off those they most are attempting to reach.
I’m not saying that as Christians we shouldn’t be upfront about Jesus and our faith in Him. Not at all. But I think that if people feel like they’re being preached to when they haven’t gone voluntarily into a church, we may not really have the impact we’re trying to. However, if we were to just put down the Bible-shaped bat some use to beat the world over the head with and instead just show others Jesus by loving them right where they are, the results just might be surprising.
I don’t want to be too hard on Fireproof – I basically really liked it…it’s a sweet love story and I would recommended it for anyone who is in a relationship, ever has been in a relationship, or ever thinks that they may one day be in a relationship. All I’m saying is that I think it may have drawn in a wider audience if they had spent a little more energy on character development and let the story of love, humility, sacrifice, service, forgiveness, and redemption speak for itself. All of these things are amazingly attractive even without being framed within a full-out alter call because they are all attributes and side-effects of knowing and loving our God. If we show the world these in our everyday lives – from the way we treat each other to the way we approach difficult situations – then we’re showing the world Jesus whether they recognize it or not, and then watch them come looking for more.
But maybe that’s just me, so take it with a grain of salt (or pepper, if you prefer), but Christian or not, I still would say go see this movie. The story really does stand on its own; and the underlying message of love being a choice backed-up (and at times made possible) through action rather than simply feelings-based is a strong, solid one worth the time and money.
Just for fun, I’ll leave you with a link to what the New York TImes reviewer had to say about it – always good to get that objective third-partier’s 2 cents…
FIreproof: Putting Out Housefires, Reigniting Passions by Neil Genzlinger
Chicken Little Has Lost It
2008 is turning out to be a year for the history books. I have been watching as the markets have been decimated over the past few weeks. So far, the DJIA is down over 5,500 points off its high in October of last year. Percentage-wise, we’ve taken a blood bath to the tune of some 35% loss. Unbelievable.
This is my world, and on this day where the Dow dropped 678 points, I just felt the need to vent a little, so here it is.
I have been in financial services for just over 11 years. Not terribly long in the great scheme of things, but certainly it’s long enough. Long enough to know what’s going on. Long enough to be saddened by it. Long enough to know that we’re headed into really dangerous waters…especially if the government keeps sticking its big, fat nose into places it doesn’t belong in the name of trying to “fix” it. The fact is that government intervention is not the way out of this mess. The government is not some sort of beacon in the night. They are not – and cannot – be our savior although it seems they believe they’re up to the challenge. Did I say “dangerous waters” before? Perhaps “shark-infested” would be more appropriate.
So we have a market acting like it has bipolar disorder, an underlying real estate fall-out with unreal foreclosure rates and the banking industry has turned cannibalistic in order to avoid total failure. In the past few weeks we have seen the collapse of companies with century-long track records and household names come crashing down (Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch to name a few). In my life and my 10 years at Merrill, I would never have expected that to happen…but who would? Then again, we know this kind of thing can happen (can you say “Enron”?) so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, but I tend towards optimism.
Then as if all of this wasn’t enough, we have a presidential election in less than a month. I don’t think they could have planned a worse time to be listening to politicians make empty promises. While we’re trying to work through a major financial crisis, I come home to find my mailbox stuffed with direct mail campaign pieces (for Obama mostly) which surely couldn’t have been free to produce. Is all that really necessary? Even in watching the debate this week, I found myself getting frustrated. At one point I wanted to scream at them, “Could you two just stop your pissing contest for two seconds and freakin’ LISTEN!” Sorry – I don’t like politicians much…can you tell? (As a sidenote on the election and politics, I found a really cool website resource called OpenSecrets.org – check it out).
Anyway, so there’s a lot going on. It can seem overwhelming. In fact, I’m sure it IS overwhelming for a lot of people. A lot of people don’t really understand everything that’s happening in the markets – all they know is that their 401(k) is going down in value like a rock right now. The sad thing is that ignorance is the mother of fear and fear’s best friend is rashness, and when money (or the loss thereof) is the reason for the fear, I think it shoots people into a whole ‘nother orbit of emotion. I was watching Fox Business News tonight and they had a panel of financial experts with phone lines open. One woman called in and said she had gotten so scared she sold all of her mutual funds today. I cringed. While I don’t want to be cavalier about people’s fear because it’s certainly real enough, if I’ve learned nothing else on Wall Street, it’s that when it comes to your investments, emotion has no place in your decision-making process. Emotion will cloud your judgment and make you do things like sell all your investments at the bottom (or near bottom) of an already bad market. I felt so sorry for that woman because I honestly believe selling everything was the wrong move. Suffice it to say, I’m leaving my 401(k) alone.
In any case, there are lessons to be learned here for everyone – from John Doe to Congress. Good ‘ol Johnny boy needs to learn how to better manage his personal finances (hey, maybe that Dave Ramsey guy knows what he’s talking about…go figure!) And Congress? Well, Congress needs to stop trying to act like a bunch of socialists…and that goes for our future president too – whoever he may be.
So that’s 2008…and it’s not over yet. I’m not sure this is quite the way we would have WANTED to have the year remembered, but there it is. The media is screaming (because that’s what they do) and the sky indeed may seem like it’s falling, but I’m not worried because at the end of the day, I know the One who is holding it up.
For now, I’m praying. Praying for our government, for the election, and the economy. Praying for sanity and for opportunities. Most of all, I’ll be praying that one of the things we’ll all see is how unstable the world really is at its core, and therefore how foolish it is to put trust in it. Instead, we need to put our faith and trust on something solid, steady, and unchanging. We need to build our metaphorical houses on the Rock because there it doesn’t matter what winds may blow (or what markets may fall) – the Rock doesn’t move. And I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in this storm.