Melissa and I watched a wonderful and haunting film this week called “Like Dandelion Dust.”  Two very different couples have their lives intersect over a shared love for a 6 year-old boy.  One set gave him up for adoption, and the other became his new family.

Yet, the birth father didn’t know he had a son given the circumstances in his life and the troubled relationship he and his wife had at that time.  And now he wants the boy back.

And that’s where the turmoil comes.

Obviously, anyone who is a parent will react strongly to this whole struggle.  Who can blame a father for wanting his child back?  Who can blame a mother for wanting to hold on to the child she has called her own from his earliest days?  What would you do to keep your child?

While it’s definitely a tear-jerker, it’s not overly mellow-dramatic.  The characters have a real depth and no easy answers are presented.  Mira Sorvino and Barry Pepper—the birth parents—play amazing roles, as shown in the number of awards this film picked up along the way at various film festivals.

I won’t tell you how it ends, where the title comes from or if redemption is found in this one.  I’ll just say that I bet it sticks with you like it’s done to me.  I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time.

Definitely queue-worthy.  Tell me what you think of this one.

I love movies.  Given the phase of life we’re in right now with younger kids, however, we don’t make it to the theater as often as I’d like.  So we use Netflix.

We recently watched “Henry Poole is Here.”  It’s a comedy drama that got recommended to us along the way.  I think it sat in our queue for some time, if I’m honest.

What makes this unforgettable is the question of how do we find resurrection or miracles in real life?  Henry moves back to his old neighborhood because of the circumstances of his life (don’t want to spoil this), and even though he wants to be left alone, people keep interrupting his life.

And he doesn’t like it much.

But they’re persistant, and they see things Henry doesn’t. And they keep at it.

I won’t say anything else, but this: I wonder why it’s so easy to get into a funk and find that it’s easy to overlook all of life around us.  Will Henry wake up?  Will we?

Great film for the Easter season.

Today during my sermon I mentioned a fabulous film that came out in 1996, “The Spitfire Grill.”  It didn’t get much play time in local theaters, but it won the Audience Award from the Sundance Film Festival that year.  Set in a small-town in Maine, it follows Percy Talbott as she leaves prison and comes to Gilead, ME to begin with a fresh start.  It’s a story about the letter of the law verses the spirit of the law, and about finding redemption.  It’s a character film to be sure (if action’s your thing, pass on this one), and well worth the time to see it.

So, put it on your Netflix queue.  You won’t be disappointed.