I am a huge
movie fan. Rom-com, action-drama, tear
jerker, political thriller, classic.
Love them all. My taste seems to
favor the quirky off-beat feel good movies like Little Miss Sunshine, Juno and Big Fish. So, a movie fanatic like myself, looks forward
to this season—you know, Movie Awards
Show Season which kicks off with the Golden Globes and culminates with the pinnacle
of awards shows, The Academy Awards.
The Academy
Award nominations for Best Picture were announced last week and I was thrilled
with the selections. 9 out of a possible 10 films were nominated for the
highest film honor and as of today, I have seen 5 of them.
I have seen Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Argo,
Django Unchained, and Les Miserables.
That leaves Amour, Beasts of the
Southern Wild, Zero Dark Thirty and Life of Pi on my must see list. I read
the book Life of Pi and know the
movie follows the book’s ending. (Semi
spoiler alert) That ending drove me insane, so I am not looking forward to
reliving that frustration, but I hear the cinematic feats of this movie are
worth the surprisingly frustrating ending.
From a faith
perspective, the movie with the best message, religious symbolism and focus on
triumph over evil, undoubtedly, is Les Miserables. Christian themes in Les Mis abound: forgiveness, redemption, grace and hope to
name a few. If you are not familiar with
the novel by Victor Hugo or the award winning Broadway play, the main
character, Jean Valjean, played by Hugh Jackman, is a sinner who transforms
himself after receiving kindness from a priest.
In the film version, the priest sings, "By the Passion and the
Blood, God has raised you out of darkness; I have bought your soul for
God!" Through this encounter with
grace, which is far more beautiful than I can portray, Valjean is reformed and
transformedI In
turning his life around, Jean Val Jean extends his love and compassion to
others by answering a dying woman’s plea, owning up to a crime that he
committed that was mistakenly placed upon another, rescues a dying man from war
and receives forgiveness and contentment at the end of his life. The famous line from Valjean’s final scene “to
love another person is to see the face of God” sung by Hugh Jackman’s Valjean is
reminiscent of the scripture verse from 1 John 4:7, “Beloved, let us love one another, because
love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.” In this final uplifting scene that depicts Valjean
as prepared to die, asking God to take him to his glory, we see that Valjean is
surrounded by his loved one and is received, by angels, into heaven.
Les
Miserables certainly is a film that I would recommend for the entire
family. Be prepared, however, there are
probably two lines of dialogue and the movie is 157 minutes. Go to the bathroom beforehand and be ready to
leave the movie theatre singing.
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