The opening shot is of a man waking up and grabbing his phone off the bedside table. The camera zooms in and holds almost too long on the cover of a copy of Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion, which I must say really intrigued me. Throughout the rest of the film this character mentions several times his non-belief in God and especially organized religion. It is obviously something important to him. I guess you should also know this is guy is a real—how shall I put it—jerk. He is a liar, a womanizer, and all-around mean person. You get to see the depths of his character as the film progresses and you grow to hate to love him.
An Imperfect Plan for Procreation
He and his close friend—a single woman in her thirties—realize that all their friends are married with children and they acknowledge that they too want to have kids. Although they also see that all of their married friends are miserable. They figure that marriage isn’t worth it just for the benefit of kids, and that divorced people have it best since they get the kids half of the time and don’t have to worry about the spouse.
Eventually, they decide that they will skip the traditional “first comes love, then comes marriage” route and just have a child together. This way they don’t enter into the emotional hurricane that is married life. They also agree that they will not be romantically involved, freeing them up to see other people. Obviously, it all seems to work great at first until their friends question their motives and they realize that their plan is not perfect.
Without giving away too much of the story, the main character finally begins to see the error of his ways and changes. From the beginning of the movie, you know clearly that this guy is not a nice guy. He is selfish and self-centered, caring only about himself, his appearance, and his pleasure. “Vanity of vanities!” (Ec 1:1) He on the other hand doesn’t realize it until he witnesses the damage he has caused to all of his friends by being such a mean person, until his world seems to be lost. But once he gets it he is finally transformed.
A Better Plan
“God loves you the way you are, but He loves you too much to let you stay that way.”
~ Matthew Kelly
It’s true. God’s love meets you where you are, which for many of us is in the “depths of Sheol” (Ps 86:13), when we’ve hit rock bottom like the man in this movie. It is then that we encounter the loving God who was with us the whole time, but whom we were unable to see in our selfishness. This was my experience as well—not my initial encounter with God, but that surrender moment when I gave up on the attempt to make myself into God and gave that job back to Him.
I couldn’t help but see the connection with the Transfiguration of Jesus. In the Transfiguration we see the man Jesus, filled with the glory and majesty of God. This was something that even the disciples who were with Him day in and day out hadn’t yet seen. To them He appeared to be just an ordinary guy with some extraordinary ways. But after the Transfiguration, their eyes were opened to the reality that Jesus was God.
Transformed & Transfigured
By revealing or manifesting this to the disciples—and likewise to us—Jesus is showing us that we too in our fallen humanity are made for more. We are made to be filled, transformed, and transfigured by the glory of God.
“The glory of God is man fully alive,
the life of a man is the vision of God.”St. Irenaeus
What does it mean to be fully alive? Well, to see the vision of God, the beatific vision, Heaven. Man is fully alive when He is in union with God! We can’t depend on ourselves to be happy, or even to be good people. It’s only through God’s glory and His grace that we are made fully alive. Most people will say that they feel most fully alive when they are in love or when they are showing love to someone else through some act of service or kindness. That makes perfect sense when we realize that we were made in the image of God who is love (Gn 1:26; 1 Jn 4:8). We were made to give and receive love—love to and from God, but also to and from others. That’s why when we close ourselves off from love, we fall into loneliness and despair. Because the purpose of life is love!
Fully Alive in Christ
There is another scene in the movie that speaks to this truth. After they decide to have a child together, they try to make a baby the old-fashioned way which proves to be more of a challenge than they had figured it would be. The awkwardness of their sexual encounter is proof of an even greater truth. Sex without love, without commitment, outside of marriage is meaningless.
This is why we are so dependent on marriage, because it is the cornerstone of the family, which is the foundation of our society. The breakdown of the family and the devaluation of marriage is a big step in the wrong direction. In the movie, one of the unhappily married friends confronts the protagonist and tells him that he can’t “have his cake and eat it too.” It’s a very true statement in this regard.
We want sex without the marriage. We want marriage without the difficulty. We want family without the commitment. We want love without God. But all of things are meant to go together. By separating them we are dividing ourselves from our purpose, from our ultimate fulfillment in this life and beyond.
Instead of going up the mountain with Jesus to see Him transfigured, to see the glory of God manifested through Him, we are content to stay down in the valley where we see only a faint glimmer of His light, and we claim it for ourselves. God wants to shine His light through you like He did through Jesus. He wants to transform you, to transfigure you, to make you holy, to make you fully alive. But you’ve got to make that journey up the mountain with Jesus. You can’t do it on your own. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t call yourself a Christian and believe yourself to be God. You’ve got to give up. You’ve got to surrender. You’ve got to let go and let God. Only then will you be able to see His light, His love, and His glory shining through you.
My Recommendation
I recommend this film for adult audiences, although there is quite a bit of profanity and vulgar language, I was able to appreciate the film for what it is. The story is true to life, especially in its representation of our society’s perception of love, sex, marriage, and the family. Luckily, there is hope for us and for the film which seeks to show that society can be wrong and that living the way God wants us to works out better for all of us. Purchase it at Amazon.com or Watch it on YouTube.