Cinematic Treasure in the Mind's Eye (Catholic World Report)
From a worldview perspective, though, it made me terribly sad; the girl's entire personality--her healthful being in the world--is built on "hockey," "goofiness," "friends," and her tiny family, which apparently consists only of her highly distracted and anger-controlled father and her mother whose dominant characteristic is apparently sadness. No siblings, no grandparents, no aunts, uncles, no godparents, nobody else to provide support or take up slack in stressful times. Of course any and all of these things her life is built upon can crumble, as aptly demonstrated in the film, where all these worldly things are just floating, held up by nothing, and connected to her by only the thinnest of tethers. With just a bit of perfectly ordinary worldly stress, they all fall apart and collapse, and only by the skin of her teeth does she reconnect with her parents and escape the real-life fate of so many children who have no foundation firmer than the things of this world to build their lives upon.
Throughout the entire film, I just kept wondering: Where is her connection with her Creator, with her Savior? "Unless God builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. . . " The house of her interior life is built upon things that will age, decay, and disappear. Oh, I forgot "honesty island," but apparently that only takes one dishonest act to crumble and disappear, so. . . where is the rock to build upon? At least we do have a depiction of an actual natural family: mother, father, child. . . and a message that at least tells kids you ought to try to stick with them. . . if they'll stick with you, which is certainly not a given these days. . . <sigh> Like I said, it just made me sad. :C
No, there's nothing outright obscene in the film (which surprisingly is increasingly rare, even in kids' films, these days!). And yes, you can certainly use this film, as Olszyk suggests, to talk with kids about the dangers of attempting to deny our unpleasant emotions, and about constructively working through our unpleasant emotions through talking with trusted and caring adults. Let me more strongly suggest, though, that if you watch this with your family, you use it as a "teachable moment" with respect to building your life on eternal foundations that can never crumble; on, indeed, the Rock of Ages.
Oh!
P.S. to Olszyk's P.S.: That "Lava" short didn't make me sad, it made me ill. It's built upon a cute (although queasily slightly ethnic-joke-y) pun, but all it does is to once again prop up the cultural lie that love equals feelings, and that marriage is based upon the same. Hurrah for the Government Registry of Friends with the Most Feels! It's the last thing we need to show our kids now. Two thumbs down; for that matter, all twenty fingers and toes down. Yuck! What DO we need to show our kids? The Irrefutable Argument.
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