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?
