Heaven Is For Real loses its wings

As a general rule, movies must strive to create an empathetic relationship between its own characters and the audience.This empathy must be created early on so the audience emotionally invests in the story being told to them, thus creating an emotionally impactful film. If this concept had been properly understood, then Heaven Is for Real could have been a fantastic movie for all people, instead of limiting itself to a single demographic.

The story of Heaven Is for Real is simple but has loads of potential. All is well for Todd Burpo (Greg Kinnear), the local priest in a small, rural town, his wife Sonja Burpo (Kelly Reilly) and their family until his son Colton Burpo (Connor Corum) has a near-death experience in which he claims to have witnessed heaven, despite never actually dying. This sends the town awry as believers and nonbelievers alike contemplate over the implications of Colton being able to describe his journey into heaven and back in full detail.

The opening thirty minutes of this movie felt like an over-extended advertisment for Mormon.com because literally everything about this small town seemed pitch perfect. The Burpo family is agonizingly flawless, being a little poor, but humble, as well as faithful, loyal, active members of their community while seemingly possessing no visible problems.

However after the son claims to have experienced heaven, the town is flipped upside down and this is where the movie truly shines. Almost everyone begins to criticize the little boy’s vision, regardless of whether they believe that heaven does or doesn’t exist. Even Reverend Burpo, having expressed extreme doubt in his own faith during his son’s crisis, doesn’t know what to think and starts to experience intense emotions of confusion, guilt and doubt.

This beautiful display of drama was so realistic as well as the exact opposite of what I had seen previously in the movie that I was thrown completely off-guard. The film really dug deep into the emotional turmoils that such a phenomenon would inevitably create, thus producing much more intriguing and three-dimensional characters. Scenes in which these personal dilemmas are explored through intimate, one-on-one conversations with Reverend Burpo and members of his community, the best one being between him and Margo Martindale, played exceptionally well by Nancy Rawling.

Sadly all this development is wasted in the final 20 minutes, in which Reverend Burpo delivers his sermon that, despite not even addressing all of the concerns that the people of the community had, apparently solves everyone’s problems turning his relatable, complex community back into the sickeningly unblemished town the audience witnessed earlier in the film.

The worst sin that this movie commits is the squandering of both the potential of the source material and its own staff. The story of Colton Burpo seems fascinating to anyone regardless of religious affiliation and has the ability to install faith in nonbelievers as well as rekindle weakened faiths, if done right. The movie itself is directed beautifully and the talented cast brings out all of the emotion that comes with the story; unfortunately, the poor choices made in both the beginning and the end of the film prevent it from being constantly entertaining.

Overall, despite being surprisingly dramatic and profound in the middle act, the movie ultimately suffers from a painful beginning and a lack of consistency in terms with its characters. Had the film subtly shown the difficulties that the community possessed before Colton’s journey to heaven and back, it could have reached a much wider audience. As it is, Heaven is For Real really appeals only to church-goers. That’s not to say that any devout Christian wouldn’t enjoy this flick, but from an objective, literary standpoint, Heaven is For Real lacks what it takes to be a good film.