In Search of…Gravitas

That is, the Movie That Everyone’s Talking About: Gravity.

I hated it.

I get it that it seems like everyone just loves this movie including plenty of hopeful (if not completely deluded) Christian reviewers. And, I get it that the effects are powerful, and the scenes spectacular. Especially when you view it in 3-D.

Which only makes it worse.

This movie takes rebellion against the Sovereign Lord to the next level, if that’s possible. The story line concerns two astronauts (one male, and one female) who are on the wrong end of an accident in space. The female astronaut (played by Sandra Bullock) first gets tossed out into space, gets rescued, gets separated from her rescuer, and finally makes it back home through the ordeal. Not bad story telling.

Powerful story telling, in fact. So powerful that the messages in this movie-feminism and humanism-come through like a rattlesnake in a flower garden.

Fantasy, in order to be profitable, must be connected to reality. If not, it is vanity. This movie starts out with the female astronaut fixing a mechanical problem. She looks downright noble and indispensable.

Very Relevant.

Meanwhile, the guy astronaut (played by George Clooney) is drifting around the space station is a rocket propelled suit while trying to set a spacewalking record.

Very Irrelevant.

So far, these messages are pretty much standard Hollywood boilerplate. But here’s the thing. After the accident, Sandra Bullock’s character (“Ryan” Stone) has to pull herself together and get back to earth. She feels she can’t make it, and decides to die peacefully and quietly. She considers prayer, decides against it because she doesn’t know how, and ultimately comes to terms with her imminent death.

At this point however, she is saved by a vision. Not a vision of the great Creator there in the vastness of space amid the spectacular works of His creation; no, she gets saved by a vision of…George Clooney! He tells her how great she is, how tough and strong she is, and how she needs to hang in there because she will have a “h— of a story” when she gets back home.

And, don’t you know, that changes everything! Based off of that ‘encounter’, she pulls herself together, and, despite all the odds, predictably (by this time), makes it back home.

Look, I don’t know if it is really true that there are no atheists in foxholes. But to be looking at death straight in the face, staring at the overwhelming power of outer space, knowing that your existence in comparison to that vastness is less than negligible, and you have nary a thought of God? Instead, you take a close look inside yourself and find the answers?

No way. No possible way.

I said in the beginning that this move takes rebellion against the Sovereign Lord to a new level, which it does. Usually, we can count on Hollywood to ignore God on earth, which is unforgivable. But this movie somehow manages to ignore God in the heavens, which is far worse.

~ Pastor Joel Saint