Two Movies

This weekend, I watched two movies that are worth comment. Life just isn’t like the movies. Usually. But, sometimes, they mirror real life in a way that can be exquisitely raw.

The first movie that I saw was ‘Last Kiss.’ It was a date night movie for my wife and I. Earlier in the week, we were at Wally World, getting new shoes for my daughter. After about a half an hour looking at shoes and realizing that the girls weren’t anywhere near done, I wandered over to the $3 movie bin. (Hey, if a man can’t spend $3 on a movie for his wife, what’s this world coming to?) I found this movie that billed itself as a romantic comedy and it had the guy from ‘Scrubs’ in it, a show my wife likes. What could go wrong?

Everything.

This movie is agonizingly close to reality. It is a movie about relationships, broken ones. It was not the ‘romantic comedy’ that it billed itself as. No, this movie is about the destruction of relationships. Marriages fell apart, relationships were destroyed, parents fought over their children. There was infidelity and dysfunctional relationships right and left. I've seen far to many destroyed relationships of close friends and people I care about, to appreciate this movie.

Save your $3 and buy your wife a big chocolate candy bar.

I would recommend this movie to one group of people. I believe that I might just send it back to my old Bible college to the counseling department. It should be a class assignment: each student must take one of the characters and describe the process for counseling this person. The people in the movie are so real that the process of counseling them would be great practice.

The second movie that I saw was also on a date night. This time, it was daddy-daughter date night. I took my little girl out to see the movie of her choice and for a little gelato afterwards. She chose the movie, ‘Up’.

This movie, I would recommend. It too is about relationships. The core of the story is about a man and a woman who get married and grow old together. She dies in the first 20 minutes of the movie and the rest of the movie involves him fulfilling a promise to her while learning to find other relationships in his life.

I am not ashamed to say that I cried in this movie. The writers do such an excellent job of making you love this couple, it’s hard not to cry when you see him alone. It really strikes to the heart of my own fears. I love my wife. A lot. And, I recognize the awful truth that one day, one of us will go before the other one.

Every love story has a sad ending. There is a deep truth there that was at the heart of each of these movies. Each movie showed the pain and grieving that comes with the loss of a relationship. Unfortunately, we live in a society where the first movie is a better example of relationships than the second.

I am distressed at the state of marriage in our world. Life is short, painfully so. We have the briefest time on this earth to live and love. Why, then, would you waste it being miserable and hateful to someone.

The truth is, you can spend a lifetime growing together in a healthy relationship, facing down your problems and learning to work together OR, you can spend a lifetime dealing with the baggage from a broken relationship. Either way, you spend a lifetime with that person.

My wife and I both come from broken homes. We could have learned the lesson that relationships are disposable. They aren’t and we didn’t. Instead, we both decided that our marriage was going to last through it all. Our goal is 75 years and then we’ll renegotiate.

We’ve lasted 13 years so far, through some really tough times and through some really great times. We’ve had the 2nd Year lull and the 7 year itch. We’ve had struggles with having children and the delight of adoption. We’ve had arguments that shook the walls and we’ve laughed together, played together, cried together, and loved together.

Relationships are hard. I won't lie to you. You will never hurt another person in this world as much as the person that you truly love. To grow in love, you must be vulnerable, and when you are vulnerable, you will get hurt. Working through that hurt as a partnership, opening up to each other, and growing old together will make for an adventure that outshines any movie script.

Healthy relationships require a daily choice to grow closer to each other. They require a regular dose of humility. They require constant care and vigilance. Long lasting, loving relationships don't just happen. They require effort. Trust me; it is worth it.

Both of these movies, ‘Last Kiss’ and ‘Up’ hold the same lesson: a healthy relationship is priceless and a dysfunctional one is worthless – it’s your choice which one you will live with.

I think I need to go watch a guy movie now.

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24.