What am I doing in the theater AGAIN?

OK, I already did a movie review this month.  And, really, I do not see that many movies in the theater.  Honest.  My wife and I have had gift passes since Christmas (see, we DON'T go that often).  But, we just saw a movie I need to talk about and that you should see:  October Baby.

There are many reviews.  I quickly read a handful just now and few stick to evaluating the movie on how well it tells a story.  October Baby has touched a nerve.  There is often a hint of anger shown by reviewers, the kind of passion that indicates an unpleasant truth has been brought out of the closet and quickly needs to be shouted down and dismissed back to where it came from.  The truth that October Baby gives a voice to is that many women who have lived since Roe v. Wade have suffered, suffered deeply, mostly in silence.

October Baby, unlike the vast majority of faith-based movies produced in my lifetime, is an artistic success in its own right.  It isn't perfect.  But, there were not any moments where I said to myself, "So, I get what they were trying to do, but that was really awkward."  You know the feeling.  Where a well-intentioned movie is so bad that you wouldn't ask someone who is not in our 'Faith Club' to see it.

I cried.  I am a father who regularly disappoints his daughters during movies because they are bawling their eyes out while I sit there apparently unmoved.  It takes an incredibly powerful movie to turn off the switch in my head that defies the movie to transport me beyond the fact that I am sitting in a dark room with a  bunch of other people eating junk food watching a large, moving two-dimensional picture enhanced by surround-sound.  I am very aware of the technical presentation of the movie.  Can't help it.  October Baby took me beyond that.

I am glad I went with my wife.  This is primarily a young woman's story, but also the story of several other women.  I was glad I could hold her hand and be thankful that the story was not her story.  But, I came away wondering about all the others who live this reality.

It was also the story of a father who, like me, while trying so hard to do what is best, fundamentally fails so often to understand his daughter and finds the only path back to her heart is to humbly ask forgiveness and the chance to try again.

And that is October Baby's message: forgiveness is the path back to wholeness.