Movie Tip

Saw a good film the other night.

It's one of those limited release flicks so it's not showing everywhere. It's worth seeing, though.

It's "Away From Her'', starring Julie Christie and Olympia Dukakis. The story is of a gently aging husband and wife who discover that Alzheimer's is slowly showing up and invading their relatively happy space. A decision is reluctantly made to place the wife in an elder care facility, and the plot winds around all the pain and loss and sadness that this generates, as well as the stretching of the human spirit.

What you have here is a slow-paced, reflective look at the whole business of aging and wrapping up and finishing a lifetime. How do you best do that? How do you conclude years of joys and tears and memories? How do you say goodbye to someone you've spent a life with?

It seems to me that babyboomers ought to be going in droves to view this film. Professionals involved in nursing home work or retirement center jobs should see it, too. Ministers would benefit as well. It offers a keen look at the inner dynamics of individuals who come down to the final years of the lifespan and have to make sobering choices and experience hefty changes.

The hour and a half spent at the cinema for this celluloid narrative might make us a little more sensitive as caregivers. It might move us to spend our youthful days better. It would certainly remind us that when we approach the end, what will matter probably more than anything else is the quality of the relationships we've had and nurtured. Strenghtening our marriages now will help us avoid a lot of guilt and regret later, too.

Staying committed to our partner all the way to life's conclusion is a beautiful ideal depicted in this movie. A love that sticks by and takes care of the spouse even when that one is no longer at his or her best is the highest demonstration of genuine agape.

Find this motion picture. Purchase a ticket. Buy some popcorn. Sit back and be prepared to think...and feel. You may shed a tear or you may not. It's a gripping crash course for all of us, though, in what's just ahead. We may as well step out of our denial. We're gonna get old, if we live long enough. And we're gonna die.

Regrettably, this good film doesn't point to a hope beyond this life's curtain going down. Sure, there is something heroic and romantic about having lived out one's days fully and well, even if nothingness is on the other side of the last breath. But how pointless and meaningless and empty and without hope or joy is a life, however long, that ends up being just a blip when compared to the immensity and neverendingness of eternity. Praise the Lord for the assurance that we Christians have of living forever! And what an absolutely incredible life it's going to be. While I applaud so much in this movie, I ached to see portrayed before me two more representative samples on the screen who had seemingly bought into our culture's thinking that this life is all there is and you better grab for all the gusto you can right now. How tragic.

Thank you, Jesus, for your resurrection that guarantees mine!