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LIFE
OR SOMETHING LIKE IT
Director
Stephen Herek states "The story is about redemption and saving one's
soul. What we think is important in our lives a lot of times is
very superficial and what we find is truly important is finding
peace within your inner self."
Review by David Bruce and Darrel Manson
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Destiny
is what you make of it.
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Directed by Stephen Herek
Story by John Scott Shepherd
Screenplay by John Scott Shepherd and Dana Stevens
Angelina
Jolie .... Lanie Kerigan
Edward Burns .... Pete
Tony Shalhoub .... Prophet Jack
Christian Kane .... Cal Cooper
James Gammon .... Lanie's Father
Melissa Errico .... Andrea
Stockard Channing .... Deborah Connors
Lisa Thornhill .... Gwen
Gregory Itzin .... Dennis
Max Baker .... Vin
Andromeda Dunker .... Mo Jesse
James Rutherford .... Tommy, son of Lanie
Produced
by
Kenneth Atchity .... executive producer
Ric Kidney .... executive producer
Teddy Zee .... executive producer
John Davis .... producer
Toby Jaffe .... producer
Arnon Milchan .... producer
Chi-Li Wong .... producer
Jeffrey Wetzel .... associate producer
Original
music by David Newman
Cinematography by Stephen H. Burum
Film Editing by Trudy Ship
MPAA:
Rated PG-13 for sexual content, brief violence and language.
For rating reasons, go to FILMRATINGS.COM,
and MPAA.ORG.
Parents, please refer to PARENTALGUIDE.ORG
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POSTER
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No
Poster Available as of 4-27-02
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AVAILABILITY
ON VIDEO AND DVD
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SYNOPSIS
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 What
would you do if you thought you only had one week left to live?
Would you radically change what was left of your life? Re-evaluate
your values and priorities?
Those
are the last questions in the world that Lanie Kerrigan (Angelina
Jolie) thought she?d ever have to face. A feature reporter at a
Seattle television station, Lanie thinks her life is perfect. Perfect
job. Perfect apartment. Perfect wardrobe. Perfect boyfriend.
But
her "perfect" world starts unraveling after a homeless street seer
(Tony Shalhoub) tells Lanie that she leads a meaningless existence,
and will die the following week. When the savant?s other predictions
come true, Lanie begins to re-examine her life and priorities, all
in a whirlwind one-week period. As if things weren?t crazy enough
for Lanie, romantic sparks fly as she reluctantly teams with a cameraman
(Edward Burns) with whom she has long been at odds.
-- ? 2002 20th Century Fox
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REVIEW
By David Bruce
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 WHAT
IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN LIFE?
What's the most important thing in life? Is it love or is it your
career? Is it work or is it your family? Lanie Kerrigan must ponder
these questions after a street savant tells her that she will die
in seven days. |
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Death
is psychologically as important as birth. . . .
Shrinking away from it is something unhealthy and abnormal which
robs the second half of life of its purpose.
-- CARL GUSTAV JUNG (1875?1961)
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 PUTTING
LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE
Ambitious, glamorous and a top reporter at the "That's Seattle Life"
morning show, Lanie has risen from her blue-collar roots and is on
her way to capturing a dream job with one of the major networks. She
has carefully planned her career path to be a major television celebrity
and has redesigned her life for a certain public image. Lanie finds
happiness in trivial and material things right down to her engagement
to Cal, a superstar batting champion with the Seattle Mariners. That
is until she learns her fate from Prophet Jack. |
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Death
is the grand leveler.
-- SIR THOMAS FULLER (1608?1661)
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 THE
PROPHET SPEAKS
Prophet Jack may or may not be a homeless madman, con-man or a real
prophet. But to Lanie, he is the voice of doom when he tells her
that she only has a week to live.
What
would you do if you only had a week to live?
Screenwriter
John Scott Shepherd drew inspiration for the screenplay from career-driven
professionals including newscasters and attorneys from mid-sized
cities whom he perceived as craving the limelight as much as advancement.
"I found myself looking around at celebrity-driven professionals
in mid-sized towns who seemed to have decided their life was perfect,"
says Shepherd, a Kansas City resident. "I pondered what is it they
require and decide to declare their life perfect? And then how far
beneath the surface did you have to look to find where the heartbreak
was? Because it always seemed to be there."
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Death
may be free?but it costs a life.
--JEWISH PROVERB
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 LANIE
LOVES PETE
The two roles are clearly opposites. Lanie craves celebrity and success
while Pete, the cameraman played by Edward Burns, has shunned loftier
ambitions and a successful New York network job as a cameraman, electing
to relocate to Seattle to be near his ex-wife and young son. Burns
explains, "Pete's attitude toward life is different than Lanie's in
that he has given up the hardcore career aspirations. In the past,
he probably focused on being the best in his field, now he's got a
different set of priorities such as trying to be a good dad to his
son." |
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Death?the
last sleep? No, it is the final awakening.
-- SIR WALTER SCOTT (1771?1832)
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TWO
VIEWS OF WHAT'S IMPORTANT
Co-writer Dana Stevens comments: "Lanie and Pete represent two sides
of the argument about what's the most important thing in life: love,
career, work or family? I think that's a more scintillating way
to have a relationship than you often see in traditional romantic
comedies.
"I
think if you were told you were going to die in a week, number one
you'd feel in a certain sense incredibly liberated," Stevens adds.
"Like you can do anything, because nothing matters anymore. But
on the other hand you might also begin to want to make connections
and have important moments that maybe you never got to have."
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Every
man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his
own dying.
-- MARTIN LUTHER (1483?1546)
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 ABOUT
SAVING ONE'S SOUL
Director Stephen Herek states "The story is about redemption and saving
one's soul. What we think is important in our lives a lot of times
is very superficial and what we find is truly important is finding
peace within your inner self." |
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For
restful death I cry.
-- WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564?1616)
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BOTTOM
LINE
Interestingly, the film never mentions God, or life after death.
The story missed a wonderful opportunity to explore something that
most people wonder about.
It
asks a profound question. And then, explores it in a superficial
way.
"By
all standards, death is the most dreaded event. Our society will
pay any price to prolong life. Just one more month, or even another
day. "
?ERWIN W. LUTZER (1941? )
"Death
has an amazing power of altering what one desires because death
profoundly affects our outlook."
?OSWALD CHAMBERS (1874?1917)
"I
am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the
great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
?Winston Churchill on his 75th birthday
FOR
MORE SPIRITUAL CONNECTIONS -click
here
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Review by DARREL MANSON BLOG
Pastor,
Artesia Christian Church, Artesia, CA
http://netministries.org/see/churches/ch01198
Darrel
has an incredible love and interest in the cinematic arts. His reviews
usually include independent and significantly important film.
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me add a bit about the Prophet Jack. I found him as interesting as
anyone else in the story. Does he fit the biblical concept of prophet?
His line, "I see, I say, you pay," may not seem like the prophets
we read of in the scripture, but there were certainly groups of prophets
during biblical times that made their livings by prophecy as Jack
does.
On
the surface, Jack seems to be a crazy street person who may beat
the odds at foretelling the future. But the prophets of the Bible
were not fortune tellers. They did not foretell; they would forth-tell.
That is, they would speak forth God's word in the understanding
that by speaking they might allow God's people to repent -- to turn
their lives around.
Jack
makes some interesting comments about himself. He refers to himself
as an Anchorite. (Anchorites were early hermits who left society
to live holy lives.) His living among the homeless could be seen
as an urban version of being a hermit. He rejects the idea that
he's psychotic, and indeed, he seems completely lucid and under
control. He says he's not in control of what he sees. God chooses
what he sees and says. Jack would like to see the lottery numbers,
instead he gets football scores or weather reports or that Lani
is going to die next week.
And
yet, all of that combines to make the word given to Lani the kind
of word that leads her to turn away from the self-centered life
she has been living and find a new way. And so in the end, he does
do more than just foretell. His message is the word that brings
repentance and redemption into Lani's life.
Is
Jack really a prophet? In Lani's life, he is.
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Review
-click here
Trailer and Photos -click here
About the film -click here
Spritiual Connection -click
here
Forum -click
here |
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