Heaven is for Real is a based-on-a-true story of a little boy, Colton, who has a near-death experience at the age of 4. Upon leaving the hospital, he starts talking about things that he shouldn’t have known, and says he visited Heaven and met Jesus. But more than that, it is the story of faith and accepting those things we cannot explain.
The boy’s father, Todd, is played by Greg Kinnear, who is absolutely fantastic in this movie. He plays the pastor of a church, a man whom the local community loves. But when Colton starts talking about Heaven as a real place to which he has been, Todd is faced with a crisis of faith. For this pastor, talking about what comes after life has always been sort of metaphorical, as it is probably for most of the world’s population that believes in some sort of afterlife. He wants to believe his son, but everyone around him tells him this is not possible. The boy did not “die” on the operating table (his heart or brain never stopped), and non-believers give him plenty of explanations. Even his own church and close family is uncomfortable with the discussion, all for different reasons. In the end, Todd has to decide that his entire life has been built on faith, and since he will never have the concrete answers he wants, he has to be content that something happened that he cannot explain.
The movie is good, and I think it can be enjoyed whether you are Christian or not. The end is a little too touchy-feely. They try to wrap everything up in a happy bow, and for a movie that the main premise is having to accept things as they are, the last 5 minutes felt a little out of character. But Kinnear’s performance as a struggling man of faith is outstanding (there’s a scene in the beginning where he tries to reason with God as I’m sure most of us have at some point have that is chilling). Well worth a view.
Jons Movie Takes 