This weekend sees the release of an early front runner for the most bonkers movie of the year with The Shack. This is the rare type of movie that when you describe the plot to someone the only proper response is “wait, really?” The Christian parable on acid features, in no particular order: a letter from god, two easy-to-solve murders for which no one is prosecuted, a scene where Jesus and the protagonist have a foot race across a lake, a man forced to dig his daughter’s grave in the garden of Eden(?), a cave in a mountain where the protagonist has a conversation with divine wisdom, a Native American myth glorifying suicide, and Tim McGraw. Despite all this, it also manages to be overlong and boring as hell.
The film’s protagonist is Mack (Sam Worthington), an all-American man who wears boots and flannel and lives with his nuclear family somewhere in the Pacific northwest. When, on a family camping trip, Mack’s youngest daughter Missy (Amélie Eve) is abducted and murdered in a shack by a serial killer, the family is shaken. More than anyone, Mack is unable to process his grief. His trouble is likely compounded by the scars from his own childhood, which saw his mother commit suicide and leave him to his abusive father who he then poisoned with strychnine. The assumption is that Mack has not reconciled with God for his previous actions and, without God, is unable to properly grieve his daughter. His more spiritually grounded wife Nan (Radhad Mitchell) cannot reach him, and focuses her attention on the remaining two kids Kate (Megan Charpentier) and Josh (Gage Munroe). But the children suffer without the attention of their father.
When the family goes away for a weekend and leaves Mack behind, he discovers a mysterious letter in his mailbox. Addressed to his wife, the letter invites her to the shack where Missy was murdered and is signed “Papa”, Nan’s nickname for God. Assuming it’s a teasing letter from the killer, Mack steals his neighbour Willie’s (Tim McGraw) truck and heads up to the shack with a gun. When he gets there, however, he discovers that the shack has been transformed into a beautiful lakeside cabin, and instead of a serial killer with an affinity for lady bugs, it’s home to personifications of the Holy Trinity. God or Papa (Octavia Spencer) takes the form of Mack’s pie-baking childhood neighbour, Jesus (Avraham Aviv Alush) is a handsome fella who spends his time in a wood shop, and the Holy Spirit (Sumire Matsubara) is a sparkling gardener who calls herself Sarayu. Though he’s disbelieving at first, Mack quickly settles in for a weekend of faith training from what amounts to The Dream Team of spiritual mentors.
What follows is a string of long, didactic scenes where Mack grapples with the nature and purpose of God, and attempts to make sense of his daughter’s tragic death. It’s a healthy mix of new-age spiritualism and good old fashioned Christian doctrine, but really amounts to an overwhelming mishmash of axioms and sentiments that allows the viewer to pick and choose what they like. Unfortunately all semblance of an engaging narrative goes out the window once Mack reaches the shack and – unless you’re really into getting preached at – it’s like you’re stuck at a weekend retreat that you never signed up for. Though the film is based on a best selling novel, the screenplay had three writers, and you get the feeling that they just split the work three ways then stuck the parts together. At a nearly unbearable 132 minutes any narrative momentum is lost, and the film lurches episodically from woodshed, to garden to kitchen to creepy cave tomb, all featuring the same basic discussion in different words.
If there’s anything redeeming about the whole mess it’s that the film looks nice, and the Holy Trinity characters are kind of intriguing and refreshingly multicultural (the America outside of the shack however, is still white as a soda cracker). Octavia Spencer is a very comforting vision of God, even when she changes into Graham Greene for a hike in the woods, Jesus is the fishing buddy we all wish we had (he can run across the lake and find the fish), and Sarayu…well she seems nice. But these interesting characters can only help so much. The film as a whole can’t deliver a coherent story and just features a litany of laugh out loud moments delivered in an oppressively literal manner. For instance, when Mack goes to bed in the shack he discovers a Gideon’s bible in his bedside table. It’s a good joke, but it’s not meant as one. When he asks God “am I dead?” God’s response is “do you feel dead?” Thanks God. And at one point a character earnestly states “it’s in the bible, so it must be true.”
It’s hard to fathom what The Shack is trying to say, but I get the feeling I don’t like it. The complaints listed above are really only the tip of the iceberg, I won’t even get into my beef with the film’s weirdly cavalier attitude towards murder or the latent misogyny at work throughout. Needless to say, it’s doubtful that The Shack is going to convert anyone, and might even have the opposite effect for any audience members actually listening to the illogic of it all. I wish I could say it’s worth seeing just for the plethora of ridiculous and outlandish scenes, but it’s not. They’re all delivered with the same boring seriousness, as if no one involved was actually paying attention to the film they were making. But, though it can’t teach you much about spirituality, at least The Shack delivers one important lesson: how not to make a movie.
Reviewed by Evan Arppe.
