Winter’s Tale (6/24/2014)

Rated PG-13 for violence and some sensuality

Starring Colin Farrell, Jessica Brown Findlay, Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly and William Hurt

Directed by Akiva Goldsman

I’m still not sure what I just watched.

This film is not easy to follow, so I’ll do my best to explain it. Set in 1895 a young man, with his wife and new baby, are attempting to enter the United States. Sadly, because of an illness, they are ordered back to Ireland. They beg to stay or at least leave their baby behind, thinking he would have a better life in the new world. Rebuffed, the father steals a model of a sailing ship and, when no one is looking they lower it, with the baby attached, into the harbor, apparently with the hope that the wooden toy model will carry the baby to Brooklyn. We jump ahead 21 years later to find Peter Lake (Farrell) the baby, now grown up, running from Pearly Soames (Crowe) and his gang. Cornered, Peter makes the acquaintance of a snow-white horse, one that bows and beckons Peter aboard. Once he’s on its back, he heads toward Pearly and his goons, eventually JUMPING OVER the 12 foot gate and flying away. No, seriously.

Maybe the book was better – but there is no way I’m reading it. Maybe I should cut Director Goldsman some slack. I mean just because he wrote the screenplay for the Academy Award winning film, A Beautiful Mind, doesn’t mean he can direct. By the way, that film still has me confused.

This film deals with some pretty big topics – immortality, chance, Satan, God, good and evil. But there are so many bizarre plot devices that I completely lost interest. Like when Peter is asked to provide two forms of ID in modern day New York and is unable to. You really have to wonder, how is he living in a nice apartment with no ID or obvious source of income? I mean this makes surviving a trip in a toy boat in New York Harbor almost believable! Almost.

Sadly the biggest waste here is the performances by Colin Farrell and Jennifer Connelly. Russell Crowe looks like he is stuck in his last role – Inspector Javert from Les Miserables.

By the time you get to the “big reveal,” hopefully you’ll have better luck figuring out what’s going on. If not, like Peter Lake, you’re on your own!

Allow me to save you two hours of your life… just “skip” this one.

SHOULD KIDS SEE IT?
No. There are some violent scenes as well as a couple sex (and sensual) scenes in the film but the profanity is on the mild side.

CONVERSATION STARTER:

1. What would you say is the theme of this movie?


2. How did the film show us the “power of love”?

Read I Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.


Reread verses 4-7 and insert your name for love

4 __________ is patient, __________ is kind. __________ does not envy, __________ does not boast, __________ is not proud. 5 __________ does not dishonor others, __________ is not self-seeking, __________ is not easily angered, __________ keeps no record of wrongs. 6 __________ does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 __________ always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.


3. How true is that?


4. What can you do this week to live and show the power of love?