Thursday, March 9, 2017

The Shack

DIRECTOR: Stuart Hazeldine  LEAD CAST: Sam Worthington, Octavia Spencer, Aviv Alush, Sumire, Graham Greene, Alice Braga, Radha Mitchell, Tim McGraw, Amélie Eve   SCREENPLAY: John Fusco, based on the 2007 novel of the same title by William Young PRODUCERS: Brad Cummings, Gil Netter  FILM EDITOR: William Steinkamp  GENRE: Drama, Fantasy  CINEMATOGRAPHY: Declan Quinn  MUSIC: Aaron Zigman  PRODUCTON COMPANIES: Netter Productions, Windblown Media
DISTRIBUTORS: Summit Entertainment  LOCATION: USA  LANGUAGE: English  RUNNING TIME: 132 minutes
Technical assessment:  3.5
Moral assessment:  4
CINEMA rating:  V14
Despite a traumatic childhood in the hands of a closet alcoholic father, Mack (Sam Worthington) turns out to be a fine family man—a loving husband and a devoted father of three.   On an outing by the lake, while he is saving his two older children from drowning, his youngest, Missy (Amelie Eve), is abducted, and subsequently murdered by a serial killer.  Police find Missy’s bloodied dress, but not her killer nor her body, in an abandoned shack in the woods.  Descending into depression, Mack cannot save his family from a protracted period of mourning.  One winter day as he is shovelling snow off the yard, he finds a note in the mailbox, inviting him to return to the same shack.  It is signed by “Papa” the family’s pet name for God.  Desperate for answers, he drives off alone to the shack.  What he discovers changes his life.
Originally written in 2007 as a mere Christmas gift for William Young’s six children, The Shack (novel) traveled a long and winding road—reaping various awards, landing on the New York Times bestseller list in 2010 for 70 weeks, selling over 10 million copies two years after its release—before the book morphed into cinematic form.  Unabashedly Christian in orientation, the story uses, however, unorthodox symbols, both as plot device and as tools to drive home its message. An African-American pie-baking woman is cast as Father (Octavia Spencer), a dusky middle-eastern looking man plays the Son (Aviv Alush), and the Holy Spirit’s role is done by an Asian woman sometimes wearing blue jeans (Sumire)—indeed an unholy trinity to many theologians, and a venue for “heavy-handed sermonizing” to most film critics.  Prejudices aside, The Shack is a well-edited entertaining watch with visual effects teasing the imagination while advancing the story. 
You don’t go to The Shack if you’re looking for “pure” theology or Hollywood-approved spirituality.  It should be viewed with an open mind, because while it seems “profoundly unbiblical”, or a mish mash of Christianity, Ancient Teaching, and New Age, it also presents God as an accessible and loving Friend. Despite the cynicism of film critics and experts of theology, The Shack knows what it’s doing, introducing an androgenous God (reminiscent of Rembrandt’s “The Return of the Prodigal Son” where the Father’s hands are both feminine and masculine) to make Mack realize it is a mistake to judge by externals alone.  God in The Shack is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present—Catholic Catechism says so, too—and may we add, God is all-loving as well.  God knows our needs and how to catch our attention.  When we’re drowning in sorrow and despair, the merciful and compassionate God may choose to show us a spectacle—a summery cottage in the middle of a wintry wood, for example, or walking on the lake hand in hand with Jesus.  When we’re in danger of breaking from the rigidity of our pride, God frees us from hatred and bitterness by gently teaching us ti give and receive forgiveness.  God in The Shack wants to intimately converse with us humans, and if we believe God is all-powerful, who are we to limit that power to talk to us only through an ass or a burning bush?  When God is at work on our faith, we do not question if the end justifies the means—because God knows best.  Might not the success of The Shack both as a book and as a movie be saying that people are hungry for the God it invites us to meet?