interesting new movie

Twice yesterday evening I randomly ran across reviews of the new movie, Get Low. I had not even heard about the existence of this movie until reading these reviews.

Here is Dr. Russell Moore’s brief review. Three paragraphs to tease you over there:

Get Low is not a “Christian movie.” The point of view is decidedly non-Christian, as is most of the mode of discourse. And that’s just the point. The film portrays something the Christian Scriptures insist to be true. Guilt isn’t something society foists upon us. There’s something primal, something real, in the guilty conscience.

The apostolic preaching confirms what human experience already affirms, a moral law is embedded in the human conscience. The conscience is not simply a kind of internal prompt for good behavior. It is instead a foretaste of judgment, of the Day when every secret is unearthed.
….
Get Low isn’t Christian, but it’s Christ-haunted. In an often animalistic culture, it reminds us that even the Gentiles know that guilt is real, and that it burns. It also reminds us that, no matter how deep the exile, where there is still a conscience there is still the God who put it there.

and here is Kathryn Jean Lopez’ review. and a preview here as well:

The only mystery to me about Get Low is why friends aren’t urging – even begging – one another to see it. At another point in the movie, Duvall’s character heartbreakingly admits: “I was always restless. I didn’t go nowhere on purpose because I did something I was ashamed of. Something I could never fix.”

If he only knew he didn’t have to fix it himself! That he isn’t alone. Do we know this, ourselves? We forget, don’t we?

Likewise, during a dramatic graveyard scene that begins to reveal the depth of the prison Felix has let sin keep him in, he recalls the advice he’s frequently given: “They keep talking about forgiveness. ‘Ask Jesus for forgiveness.’”

He shakes his head in indignation masking a dangerous and deep flirtation with despair. “I never did nothing for him,” Felix protests in the voice of one desperately in need of God’s mercy.