We were visiting family and were on our way out the door when we stopped to pick up the movie The Way. I
had decided I wanted to watch it once more and had asked mom and dad if I could take it with me. My niece, home on break from college, asked whether it was a comedy. I paused and said, there are certainly some funny spots in the movie but I wouldn't call it a comedy. My dad then said, "It's a religious movie", and that's where, unfortunately, the conversation stopped.
Talk of religion has a way of doing that these days, sadly.
Yes, I guess you could say the movie is religious. There are scenes inside churches, there are scenes that include priests, there are scenes of people on their knees, of people crossing themselves, of people being handed rosaries. So yes, it's a religious movie but... it's much more than that.
The movie touches on death and its impact on the living. It touches on life and its impact on those who aren't living it to the fullest. It touches on solitude, on community and the need for both. It touches on those who believe they can live life without religion and on the religious who think they can live life without sorrow or pain.
It touches on our need to be aware of the pain others are carrying. It touches on how that pain should never be carried alone.
I wish I might've been able to spout all this to my beautiful niece who I know with certainty, would enjoy this movie. As I know with as much certainty, so would her beautiful mother, my sister, who has seen her share of pain.
So I write this post for them, hoping they'll take another look, hoping they'll give the movie a chance, hoping it'll touch them as it has touched me.
In fact, I hope that for anyone who has yet to see it.
Yes, it's a religious movie. But you'll not regret watching it.
Trust me.
