5) Heaven Is For Real
It’s an entire genre unto itself at the moment: the individual-slips-into-a-coma-and-sees-white-Jesus-and-no-one-believes-him fad that the original book version of Heaven is For Real fits into. So it’s fair and reasonable (and yes, I say that because it was my own personal presupposition) to presuppose that the film adaptation is also going to fit into the trend of so-called “faith-based films,” which is not even necessarily a cohesive trend as people describe it.
Nevertheless, Heaven is For Real happened to have been released at the same time as titles like God’s Not Dead and Noah, and as we all know, when you have three of something, it’s officially a cultural pattern that must be commented upon, and grouped together, no matter how little the works actually have in common.
It just so happens I think all three of these examples are worth seeing, and for different reasons, but Heaven is For Real was probably the biggest surprise for me in terms of the way it handles its subject matter. It turned out to be the opposite of self-righteous and preachy, and instead, thanks in large part to the subtle but superb talent of Greg Kinnear, is an earnest story of a family simply trying to make sense of an experience they can’t fully understand or explain.
The only way this movie works is with a protagonist that is at least a little bit likeable and, most importantly, comes off as unassuming, which is difficult to pull off when your character is a pastor, but by putting him at odds with his congregation and making him far more skeptical than one would expect from an apparent man of faith, Heaven is For Real explores much more interesting territory than it could have otherwise.