country song

Country Strong
I like Gwyenth Paltrow, I love Tim McGraw, and I love country music – naturally since I’ve seen the previews for new movie “Country Song” I’ve been dying to see it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi-T8_2kt-8
Now that I have seen it, I feel compelled to share with the three people who read this blog (okay, maybe four) and say this: I highly recommend it. The acting is great, the songs are prime for singing along (I’ve already downloaded the soundtrack) and the movie is quite thought provoking.

I’ll try not to spoil important details of the movie but feel the need to share this: the movie is dark and uplifting at the same time. I think it does a great job of showing how people with good intentions get sidetracked and distracted and lost, ending up in a dark, dreary place full of pain. You can simply watch the preview and see that Tim McGraw loves his wife, but is also pushing her to perform, to continue singing, even as she struggles to fight addictions and stand on her own two feet.

In the darkness of the movie theater I felt sad and sorry for Tim McGraw’s character. His wife clearly loves singing, is talented, and at some point in her life loves nothing more than performing on stage. As she struggles to do that, though, instead of scaling back, he pushes her more and more, scheduling multiple concert appearances. Gwyneth’s character continues to be sad, question what makes her happy, and finds herself in a drunken, hideous state more than once.

I know to the skeptics and cynics of this world, the following will sound crazy, naïve, simplistic. And I don’t blame them for thinking it. But I feel that Gwyneth, with all of her beautiful blonde hair and beautiful, bold singing voice, cannot find contentment because she searching in all the wrong places. In her fame, in her talent, in her husband, in her vodka bottle - and I don’t say that in a judgmental way, I’ve briefly looked in similar places, too. And I’ve never found joy, not joy that lasts.

There’s a very cute boy in the movie who you meet at the opening of the film. He’s an employee at Gwyneth’s rehab facility and you quickly find that he has a huge heart, is a very good guy, gives a lot of himself to make others in the film happy. And yet, try as he may, the cute boy can’t fix Gwyneth. Perhaps because he is just that: a cute boy. And we need more than a boy, more than a mere human, to help us in our misery.

I walked away from the movie ready to two step, ready to sing, and still, a bit sad. Again, I won’t spoil it for you, but there is no mention of a higher power in the film, no mention of grace, or peace, or really unconditional love. I wondered as we walked out of the theater: if the story line would have changed had there been someone to share the light of God.

And I don’t mean a twangy, artificial, stereotypical evangelical country preacher. (Though I’m sure they’re doing their own part for heaven’s glory.) I had in mind just your average, run of the mill kind person who by the grace of God has come to know the peace and security found in Christ. It feels a bit cheesy to even type that, but really – my life is so different because of what I put my faith in, and how the Lord pours into me. I would not have that faith or contentment if it weren’t for relationships with a few people on this planet – my parents, Libba and Mike Maddry, Mary Chenoweth, a few other young life leaders, and several others I’ve met along the way. People that remind me we can’t make it in this life alone – and that we’re not designed to.

The music and the lighting and the acting are all beautiful, but I found myself wanting to tell everyone in the movie, to shout at them – there’s more to life than this! (Call me crazy, but I found the movie was so compelling that a few times during the movie I had to remind myself the characters are not real and that they cannot hear me gasping and making comments to them.)

There has to be more than broken marriages, and hurting people, and pain for nothing – by no means is life less painful or broken for Christians. But there is that peace and strength and comfort from knowing we are made and loved by God that makes all the difference.
Gwyneth, I’m not sure you can hear me through all that hair and hairspray covering up your ears, and I know I have to struggle to hear it more on some days than others, but: you.are.loved.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:1-5