Sometime in the early to mid '80s, a man named Arlen Faber (Jeff Daniels) met God. In 1988, Faber published a book entitled Me and God in which he shared his encounters and conversations with none other than the Big Guy himself. In the weeks and months that followed, the book topped best-seller lists, dominated the covers of every major magazine, and became an overnight pop culture phenomenon. Twenty years later, with ten percent of the "God market" still firmly in its grip, the book about a man and God is considered to have redefined spirituality for an entire generation. However, ask anyone if they've ever met the mysterious man who spoke to God and penned His thoughts for all to read, and the answer would be a resounding no.

Open The Answer Man, a movie about lives full of questions, people in search of answers, and a man who actually doesn't have them all. Arlen Faber may be revered by millions as the man who changed their lives forever, but when we first meet him, he's just another guy swearing at the mail carrier who has so rudely interrupted his afternoon meditation session. When his frustration with the latest series of self-enlightenment books reaches a breaking point, he's just another rude customer that bookstore owner Kris Lucas (Lou Taylor Pucci) must ask God "to grant him the serenity to accept that he cannot change." And when his back goes out and he crawls his way to a newly opened chiropractic clinic owned by Elizabeth (Lauren Graham), he's just another person in need of a healing hand.

Of course, such a famous name can only stay hidden for so long, and soon Kris and Elizabeth are more than aware of who Faber is. Struggling to stay sober while still living with his alcoholic father, Kris brokers a deal with Faber to take an offending book or two off of Faber's hands in exchange for answers to questions. "Why can't I do the things I want to do? Free will or destiny? If God created everything, how come there are so many bad things in this world? How can I love my father even though he's selfish and he's scaring me?" Kris asks. "Nothing happens to you; you choose what you want. Opposites. Without bad, we would never fully recognize or appreciate good. You have the free will to run towards or away from a purpose. Let go of your expectations," Faber answers.

As Faber gets to know Elizabeth, their relationship is less one of teacher and student and more one of mutual respect and trust. A single mother who straps her school-aged son into a futuristic car seat every morning and bids him goodbye with a "Be careful. Have fun," she invites Faber into her life as one of what seems to be very few men on whom she's been willing to take a risk. Elizabeth turns to Faber for encouragement and trusts him with her son. But when an actual crisis occurs and Faber literally offers nothing more than an apathetic stare, between his words and his actions opens up a disconnect.

As we pretty much see from the beginning of the movie and Elizabeth and Kris come to see gradually, Faber isn't exactly the man so many people imagine him to be. He is rude, he is deceitful, and most of the time he only seems to care about himself. When he puts on a fake name for the afternoon, he picks Zebulon, Hebrew for "exalted." As he reveals in a scene in which he shows Elizabeth his collection of monster figurines, allowing any of his monsters out of his locked closet and into the open for even a minute is nearly unfathomable. But as we see, when those monsters do come out and that expectation of who he should be meets who he actually is, it is somewhat of a rude awakening.

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