The Shack

What it's about:

After suffering a family tragedy, Mack Phillipsspirals into a deep depression, causing him to question his innermost beliefs. Facing a crisis of faith, he receives a mysterious letter urging him to go to an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Despite his doubts, Mack journeys to the shack and encounters an enigmatic trio of strangers led by a woman named Papa. Through this meeting, Mack finds important truths that will transform his understanding of his tragedy, and change his life forever.

What we thought: 

Faith based movies are generally not everyone's cup of tea, most of the time it’s filled with too much preaching and Christian doctrine.

Even for this preacher's kid it's overbearing, but I was pleasantly surprised by The Shack.

I had heard from various people who have read the book that it changed their lives and I can honestly say that after leaving the cinema I was touched in a very profound way. It made me look at spirituality, faith and life in general through different eyes.

What makes this movie a great watch is that is isn’t filled with bible thumping preaching instead, it challenges conservative Christian views.

The trinity, played by Octavia Spencer (Papa), Aviv Alush (Jesus) and Radha Mitchell (Nan) work well together as one and also separately (see what I did there). Each character portrayed their roles with conviction.

As for Sam Worthington (Mac) the whisper/husky tone he used was a bit distracting.

Although the themes explored in the film are quite emotional there are also light hearted moments.

I do feel that the film's running time is a bit long to sit through and tends to lag when the 'deeper concepts' are explained.

If you're not a believer and you haven't read the book you're probably not the target audience.

But the themes explored: Love, loss, anger, pain, compassion and forgiveness are things we all can relate to, making it definitely worth the watch.