Friday, January 2, 2009

Slumdog Millionaire

I went to see Slumdog Millionaire tonight.  It was fantastic in every way except the most important way.  It had believable characters, compelling style, fascinating settings, a coherent structure, balanced humor/romance/drama/suspense, a great plot with engaging rising action, conflict, climax and resolution (in other words it told a wonderfully Christian story) and then it ended by chalking the whole thing up to "destiny."

How an obviously intelligent writer could write such a wonderfully personal story with very personal characters and personal conflict and personal resolution only to end the whole thing with an impersonal force behind it all absolutely baffles me. How a story can be so Christian in so many glorious ways and then do a backflip off the wagon of coherence when it comes to the question of ultimate meaning is very frustrating.

I highly recommend the movie for the many aforementioned qualities but I ask that you simply remember that the reason why you will enjoy this movie is because it is retelling God's story very well in many ways.  Do your best not to be distracted by the hypocritical fatalist writer's lame attempts at a godless explanation after he just ripped off of God's story without so much as a footnote or "Work cited" reference.