- Actors: Sam Worthington, Octavia Spencer, Tim McGraw, Avraham Aviv Alush, Radha Mitchell
- Director: Stuart Hazeldine
- Disc Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
- Language: English
- Subtitles: English, Spanish
- Region: Region A/1
- Rated: PG-13
- Studio: LIONSGATE
- Release Date: May 30, 2017
- Run Time: 132 minutes
Faith-based
films are slowly improving, getting better scripts and actual actors to play
the roles. Gone are the days of Sherwood Pictures, which would make movies with
volunteers treating the production like a ministry rather than an art form. But
even with these improvements and some actual directors being chosen to helm the
projects, there is often still a glaring issue with the motivation of these
films. They are often so single-mindedly preoccupied with evangelizing to the audience,
they end up feeling more like propaganda than art or entertainment. While The Shack is better than most at this,
it still manages to be a slog of a film to sit through. Easily 30-minutes too
long, this faithful adaptation of the best-selling book also feels largely
unnecessary.
Falling into the
trap of many faith-based narratives, The
Shack is dripping with contrived despair and melodrama. Beginning with the
background of our protagonist, Mack (Sam Worthington), whose childhood included
addiction and abuse from his father figure and resulted in the child’s
homicidal revenge, the film only piles on the misery as it continues. When a
family camping trip results in a freak abduction of his youngest daughter, Mack
is left with even more trauma to blame on God, who kindly sends him an
invitation to the abandoned shack where it all originated.
Leaving behind
his wife (Radha Mitchell) and two other children, Mack returns to the scene of
the crime and discovers three strangers who introduce themselves as God. This
trio represents the trinity, including Jesus (Avraham Aviv Alush), the Holy
Spirit (Sumire Matsubara), and the one who calls herself Papa (Octavia
Spencer). Over the course of a weekend, Mack comes to terms with his loss and
the anger he feels, restoring his relationship with God along the way. It is
all very peaceful and easy, feeling absolutely nothing like grief in the real
world. In fact, although I appreciated aspects of the novel, the film has
oversimplified the process to the point of being insulting. Even worse, the
movie is dull.
I think part of
the reason that the movie is as boring as it is has to do with the filmmaker’s
emphasis on the lighter and more joyous aspects of the narrative. The effort is
clearly made in order to attempt to show how positive religion can be, though
it does so without ever giving us an accurate depiction of why faith is
necessary. By refusing to dig into the misery beyond the surface events, the
relief from God feels unearned. And although I appreciate some of the melodrama
being understated, it never felt close to the emotional level necessary for the
material. Perhaps some of this is simply the shortcomings of Worthington’s abilities as an actor. Or
perhaps this was an effort to keep this film as family friendly as possible.
The biggest
issue with this film, other than being completely unnecessary, is the blandness
of it. First of all, 132-minutes is far too long for a film with so little
happening. Secondly, for a movie about something so fantastical, it is
remarkably uninspired visually. The opportunities to make this more engaging
are wasted on bland nature scenes and unimpressive CGI. And lastly, most of
this movie plays out like an extended therapy session. Even when the locations
change, this is essentially just a movie with main character talking about
feelings. The cheesy lines may have mostly been cut down compared to other
faith-based films, but that doesn’t mean that the dialogue here is inspired in
any way. At best, it is passable. Even though Spencer does an admirable job
saying the words with sincerity, they are rarely words that feel as profound as
we are meant to believe they are.
The Blu-ray
release includes plenty of special features, even if most of them are self
promotional. There is a featurette discussing the author’s journey writing the
novel, a few evangelical making-of featurettes, deleted scenes, and a
commentary track with director Stuart Hazeldine (Exam). There is even a featurette about a song from Hillside United
which was created for this film, because apparently there is cross-promotional
marketing within faith-based films now. It isn’t enough to buy into the
adaptation of a best-selling book everyone with faith was pressured into buying
into, but you also must have the heavily marketed worship band from a popular
mega-church shoved down your throat in the soundtrack and special features. As
long as Christians keep blindly buying into the consumerist-driven aspects of
evangelism, there will continue to be people selling it under the guise of
faith. If nothing, The Shack proves
that religion is simply good business.
Entertainment Value:
4.5/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 6/10
Historical
Significance: 6/10
Special Features: 6.5/10
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