Read More @HJ Reviews: Managing the Monster in the Shed Greg Wright Previews: Background HJ

Everyone suffers loss.  Before it happens, we tend to think of it in theoretical terms, much as C.S. Lewis seems to have when writing his book The Problem of Pain.  Sure, we’ve known loss in the past, and that’s why we ponder the issue of pain.  But by the time we’re capable of dealing with the big-picture problem, the grief has mostly subsided and faded into memory.  It’s not palpable.  And so the problem becomes abstract:  Why does God allow bad things to happen?

But, as C.S. Lewis himself discovered, being in the midst of grief is not so abstract.  It can be all-consuming.  It can challenge your faith, and it can lead to cynicism—as Lewis also documented in A Grief Observed.  The question then is not so much about God and his purposes; the problem at this point is more about survival, and what will happen to you when you come out the other side of grief.  It’s also about what happens to those around you, as Lewis’ stepsons discovered.

I have a hunch that both Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien would have enjoyed Jay Russell’s film of The Water Horse, not only because the setting is Scotland’s Loch Ness, but because it’s also about story-telling, monsters, and belief.

Set in the early years of World War II, the film tells the story of a boy and his mother who are left alone when the father goes off to war—and the boy soon makes an amazing discovery along the shores of Loch Ness.  But this is no mere adventure tale, or a simple coming-of-age story, says Russell.  It’s about “the loss of having something to believe in,” he says.

I asked him to elaborate during a recent chat over the phone. “Without giving away too much of the story,” he continued, “all of the characters are carrying this weight on their backs—this burden that they’re not sharing with each other.  And so you have two main characters in this movie who have isolated themselves from each other.”  The mother, played by Emily Watson, hides monstrous truths from her son; the son hides fantastic truths about a monster from his mother.  Both do so as a means of dealing with the loss they have known.

So what does pain do to people?  Does it lead them to rationally ponder the meaning of pain, and theorize about the existence and purposes of God?  Not in this story, says Russell.  “Emily Watson’s character is probably carrying the most pain in the movie.  And because she’s lost her sense of belief, she’s become cynical.”  At one point, she goes so far as to tell her son, “There is no monster, there is no magic.” 

That’s code, says Russell. What she’s really saying, he points out, is “that there’s nothing much to live for in this world.” So there’s a personal cost.

But as The Water Horse illustrates, it’s a cost than fans out beyond the personal.  The mother’s own cynicism cuts her off from her son, the only remnant of her husband that she has left.  And her son tries to cling to something he can neither control nor tame.

What’s great about The Water Horse as a family film is that it doesn’t leave us there with cynicism and doubt.  Just as the film reconciles this mother with her child, The Water Horse asks us to have faith in the magical, too—a refreshing idea in harmony with the season. 

Yes, God allows some terrible things to happen, even to those he loves most, like his own Son.  But he also does some great things, too, stepping right into this world, into our midst, bringing peace and love into the midst of war and strife.  It’s magical, and it’s a great thing to believe in.