An engaging spiritual realism characterizes recent films on the themes of morality and spirituality, right and wrong, life and death. These movies all offer fine performances and compelling story lines.

 It started with Woody Allen’s Irrational Man, which suggests that the foiling of an out-of-control murderer may somehow be built into the universe. An alcoholic and intellectually drained philosophy professor, Abe Lucas (Joaquin Phoenix), is both washed-up and the new star faculty at a small New England campus.  Allen summarizes the professor’s worldview:  “I couldn’t remember the reason for living, and when I did it wasn’t convincing.”

In Abe Lucas’s classroom, there is a disdain for lies (though Allen adds a disclaimer that turning in Anne Frank’s family to Nazis is not ethically right even though Kant says every lie is bad). Even so, Abe indulges in an affair with married science professor Rita (Parker Posey) and decides to allow an innocent man to be accused of murder.

Though the middle-aged professor soon enters into a second affair with a perceptive coed (and faculty daughter!), Jill (Emma Stone), he is bored with life and even plays Russian roulette with a loaded gun in front of students. He loses interest in sex and writing, carrying his depression and a swig of scotch around with him. The only thing he has going for himself are rumors that hype his legend -- that he is drug-savvy, that  he is scarred by his mother’s suicide and by a friend’s death in Iraq, that his father died when Abe was young, that his wife left him for his best friend.

It would seem that Abe is a bona fide Job, or at least a reputed sufferer par excellence.  At one point he claims to have spent over six months in Darfur giving food to starving families, only to have ended up with meningitis.  

Allen suggests that Abe’s focus on Heidegger and fascism has warped his mind even as Abe dismisses the efficacy of philosophical discussions as “verbal masturbation.” Indeed, Abe is cynical about the whole university enterprise, dismissing the students as “sweet kids but mediocre,” destined to “grow up to shape the world with passivity and misinformation -- mentoring has limits.” 

Allen provides an intriguing twist to the Job story. Instead of protesting to God, Abe Lucas decides to play God. In a restaurant with his young lover, he overhears a conversation about a woman who has been bullied by a judge, and decides to murder that judge.  Abe wants to choose action over clichés, to be able to proudly proclaim: “My name is Abe Lucas and I’ve murdered” -- and gotten away with murder. But Jill has her suspicions and teams up with Rita. When Jill finally confronts Abe, he confesses:  “The deed gave my life meaning. I could now feel for you.” Whether intended or not, the fundamental humor -- and horror -- in this film is a man’s attempt to find his own humanity by playing God and meting out absolute justice (as he sees it).

Abe goes from a state of depression to a euphoria that does not allow for self-scrutiny or regrets. Does Woody Allen regard rejection of guilt as the problem of modern human beings? Even after an innocent man is accused of the crime, Abe, who has “acted,” avoids thinking about what he should do next. (His one stab at “humility” and self-scrutiny is a rather detached observation: “The more people think you’re great, the more you feel you may be a fraud.”) Now he’s enjoying life too much to give himself up, having through his “mission” gained “understanding” of “why people enjoy life.”

Ironically, the film appeared around the time of the Jewish High Holy Days when teshuvah, repentance, is the central theme. But Abe is incapable of repentance and thus the film avoids dealing with that theme. When Jill tells Abe that he can’t rationalize murder, he tries to throw her into an elevator, but is foiled by a fall of his own. Does Allen posit a kind of “chance” that functions in the universe to inspire receptive people to nod at morality? This film is somewhat reminiscent of the biblical Book of Esther in which human actions, both good and bad, lead to good outcomes indicative of a greater Guidance.

While Allen’s film was in theaters, Alex and Stephen Kendrick, Christian Evangelist film producers, offered War Room. They focus on a successful, upwardly mobile African American couple, real estate agent Elizabeth Jordan (Priscilla Shirer) and her husband Tony (T. C. Stallings), a pharmaceutical rep. They are the parents of precocious young Danielle (Alena Pitts), who is painfully aware that her parents have a strained marriage.  Through her house-selling work, Elizabeth meets the inspiring but curmudgeonly Miss Clara (Karen Abercrombie), a widow who has made a mission of healing marriages because of her once war-torn marriage (literally and figuratively).

Miss Clara shows Elizabeth her “war room,” a closet cleared of clothing and other vanities and decorated with encouraging Bible verses.  She advises that Elizabeth not regard her increasingly irascible husband as the enemy, but rather should focus on prayer that enmity itself be driven out of her home. At one point Elizabeth actually calls Satan out of her house. While regarded by some critics as bizarre, this scene is actually true to the Hebrew, “Satan,” which literally means “adversary/accuser” (“enmity”) or “adversary/accusation-causer.”

Elizabeth does hollow out her own closet “war room” to wage battle against the enmity threatening her own home by praying for her husband.  Here, too, the scenario is not bizarre because it simply concretizes a New Testament verse urging the creation of a prayer closet (Matthew 6:5-6)

As it turns out, her husband requires more prayers than she thinks. He positions himself for an affair with a co-worker, arranging to meet her at a restaurant. But he takes sick during the meal. Is he prevented from adulterous sex by prayer, by psychosomatic pangs of conscience, or both? It is clear that, like many people, Tony finds a thrill in cheating. Though well paid, he has been stealing drug samples from his company. Is his theft a way of battling adulterous urges? His nasty, cold treatment of his wife is indicative of deep inner turmoil and guilt.

When Tony, literally sick over his cheating on many levels and bowed down by regret, stumbles into his wife’s war room, a genuine process of repentance is precipitated.

Miss Clara has a formidable effect both in her counsel and in her presence. In a controversial scene, she frustrates a k nife-wielding mugger by invoking the name of the Christian savior in a kind of exorcism of his evil intent. Many critics vilified the scene as highly improbable, and also as an example of what one should not “try at home.” But the truth is that the events in Woody Allen’s Irrational Man that foiled Professor Abe’s plan to murder Jill are actually no more or less improbable than the woman who stifles a mugger or than a husband’s nausea at the prospect of committing adultery. Even at a simple psychological level (to which neither the filmmakers nor I want to reduce these segments), the dynamics of the latter two scenarios, given a certain cultural or religious milieu, are far more plausible, not to mention socially desirable.

Indeed, of the two films, War Room may well be the more “realistic” and have more universal appeal, since most people have appropriate bursts of guilt and conscience and are capable of repentance. It was a far more “Jewish” film for the High Holy Day season than Allen’s. Tony’s attention to repairing his family is particularly touching and inspiring, and, by helping a former employer to fix a tire, he even fulfills the mitzvah or commandment of Hebrew Scriptures to help one’s antagonist (Exodus 23:5).

As the calendar moved from the Jewish High Holy Days to the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, NBC television offered one of the most moving and beautiful films ever shown on either small or big screen, Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors, based on a song that Parton wrote several years back about her childhood.

Written by Pamela K. Long, this film focuses on several months in the life of young Dolly (Alyvia Alyn Lind), living in a small Tennessee town with her parents and brothers and sisters. Dolly’s mother Avie (Jennifer Nettles) is a pious Christian, whose own father (Gerald McRaney) pastors the local church. Dolly’s hard-working dad (Ricky Shroder) is not into church-going.

The family awaits the youngest of the Parton children. Dolly, especially, anticipates the birth. She is now old enough to assume second mother status for this sibling. But the baby boy dies, and Momma falls into deep depression. Dad tells Momma that she has to come out of it, for Dolly is no longer singing but spending nights at the burial ground. Forcing herself back into life for Dolly’s sake, Avie crafts a “coat of many colors” for her. She tries to bring some comfort to herself and to Dolly by observing: “You mustn’t wish that you had never have loved him. Love is stronger than death.”

The film beautifully highlights authentic Christian theology and piety, and offers a valuable portrait of Christian family outreach. At one point Dolly’s preacher grandfather notes the growing alienation between his daughter and her husband due to her depression and his lack of a spiritual outlet for his grief, and warns Avie: “You’ve got to lead him back to you. He’s not like us. He don’t have the Lord to follow. You’re about the closest thing he has to that.”  

While facing all this tragedy and conflict at home, Dolly must endure bullying at school. The kids make fun of the patch coat that her mother has made. Dolly’s classmates, especially the vicious, angry siblings in one family, strip the coat from her and push her into a closet. When she returns home, she throws the coat down and castigates her mother for “lying” to her by leading her to believe that the “ugly” coat is beautiful. Then Dolly runs to her brother’s grave to have it out with God: “Don’t You be looking at me. You should be ashamed to show Your face. Everyone says that God loves you. You wouldn’t have killed my baby [brother] if You loved me. He was just a little baby, my baby. You kill the sweet ones I love, and let the mean ones, like the…[bullies] live.” She spits upward at God. “You’re the bully, that’s what you are. I spit in Your eye.”  This scene, like many in this film, is unforgettably moving, and reminiscent of Hasidic tales of rabbis arguing with God.

Dolly’s friend, who has tried to protect her, follows her to the burial place and comforts her after being invited by the family to dinner. Dolly realizes that it was this friend, whom she had spurned, who brought the family a Thanksgiving turkey, and who put flowers on the baby brother’s grave. Dolly tells her: “That’s angel work.”

There’s a lot of “angel work” in this film, such as Dolly’s older sister doing an intervention with her father: “It hurts her [Mother] if you tease her about God. If she ain’t got God she ain’t got nothing. It’s her faith that keeps her going. If you’re attacking God you’re attacking her.” Mother does angel interventions all the time through sage advice grounded authentically in Christian (one can say Judeo-Christian) ethics, as when Momma explains the actions of the schoolyard bully-siblings: “I think that’s what happens when love is missing…. When love is missing it just goes sour like milk sitting out too long in the sun.” 

The genuine piety in the family leads to wonderful back-and-forth angel “interventions,” which are natural and authentic rather than preachy: “You gotta forgive them. Deciding to forgive is an act of love,” Momma advises. “Like deciding to forgive Daddy?” responds Dolly. Mother’s reaction and the movie’s theme coincide:  “It never fails. If you remember nothing else from the Bible.” The film parallels Hasidic teachings with its final message that God, too, must be forgiven even when faith is questioned.   

“Angel work” also permeates another touching film about small town Christian piety, which graced movie theatres during Lent, Easter and Passover.  Miracles From Heaven, written by Randy Brown, and produced by DeVon Franklin, T. D. Jakes and Joe Roth, tells the true story of Annabelle Beam.  An exuberant 10-year-old, skilled at soccer and tree-climbing and intellectually curious, always with a book in hand and a dream to visit Paris, Annabelle (Kylie Rogers) is suddenly ravaged by an aggressive intestine disease.

At first Anna’s church attending, believing mom Christy (Jennifer Garner) is hopeful. When an ailing Anna asks her, “Why do you think God hasn’t healed me?”, her mom offers a heartfelt but rather mechanical response, “There are so many things I don’t understand, but I know that God loves you.” Christy then experiences a crisis of faith: “Are You there? Can You hear me? Because I don’t hear You.” Her despair is increased by the unsolicited advice of “church ladies”: “Somebody’s sins are preventing the healing.”

Christy then tells her concerned pastor that she is not returning to church until the situation improves. “I don’t have faith about anything,” she confesses. “I can’t even pray.” The pastor responds with sensitivity and wit that he wishes he could give everyone a spiritual IQ test before they walk through the door, but that one can’t choose one’s neighbors:  “You just have to love them.”

Indeed, the film depicts the pastor sympathetically, and the beautiful modern mid-century church, in which key scenes, including services, counseling sessions and confrontations, are held, almost steals a couple of those scenes. In a one-on-one session with Christy, the pastor asks, “What can I do to make you come back?” When Christy insists, “Tell me why a loving God would let Annabelle suffer like that,” the pastor responds that no one (but God) can answer that question, but that just because she’s sick doesn’t mean that there’s not a loving God.

Anna’s dad Kevin (Martin Henderson), a true knight of faith, remains a church-goer and does whatever is necessary to hold the family together, even while struggling to establish an ambitious veterinary practice. Despite her questioning of faith, Christy never gives up on Anna. As Anna’s health deteriorates drastically, Christy drags her to a Boston specialist after waiting months for an appointment, hoping to be seen by the busy doctor. Through “angel interventions” of good people -- a new receptionist; a waitress (Queen Latifah), appropriately named Angela; and an understanding airline clerk -- Christy and Anna get to see the brilliant real-life physician, Dr. Samuel Nurko (Eugenio Durbez), who has a fine way with children and cutting edge, creative medical methods.

Anna maintains her faith. She inspires another dying little girl, Haley, with her refusal to fear death because God is always with her, giving away her cross which is a “reminder” of her faith. Later, Haley’s father, a Boston reporter, will publicly confirm that Haley’s last few weeks were good because she found faith and peace and felt loved by God.

Annabelle is ready for death -- that is, for Heaven, telling her mother, “I don’t want to make you sad. I just want it to be over.” But something happens that leads to a spontaneous remission due to the possible “resetting” of her central nervous system. Even with a genuine, indisputable medical miracle, Christy’s eloquent testimony gets her taunted by fellow churchgoers for “publicity-seeking.”

The charm of this film is that it is realistic about the foibles of religious communities and the precariousness of faith. “Miracles,” we are told, “let you know that God is there” (and make returning to religious communities, despite pettiness, easier). The question is not why one child recovers and one does not, but whether we are ready to embrace the gift of faith which such a miraculous event, however explained, encourages people to appreciate. That is a very sophisticated point, and very good theology.

Indeed, the three religious films offer what Abraham Heschel called “depth theology,”  the “substratum” of insight that can be appreciated by spiritually sensitive people of all faiths; and Woody Allen’s film, in spite of itself, suggests that right outcomes might disclose a world structure that favors the right. All these films take a rather realistic approach.