After I saw this movie, my husband and I joked that if I was one of those cruel film critics, I would title this, “Hayden Christensen spends 90 minutes in Heaven while audiences spend 121 minutes in purgatory.” But, then I saw that title was already taken. So, it wasn’t just me. It wasn’t just that the film was agonizingly slow. It wasn’t just that the dialogue was overly verbose, as if they were reading what they should say out of theology textbook. It wasn’t just the poor attempt at humor that just didn’t work. It was the choice of the content of the film. When a film is titled, “90 Minutes in Heaven” you kind of expect to see more than five minutes of heaven in it.
I don’t know what the book was like because I didn’t read it, but the movie wasn’t really about heaven. It was really the story of Don Piper’s excruciating physical recovery on earth, with a quick epilogue about heaven tacked on to the end. Which actually may been an interesting story to watch if it weren’t so excruciatingly slow. But maybe that was intentional. Maybe the filmmaker was trying to make his audience feel just how long and difficult the road to recovery was for Piper. Maybe.
So, the message of the movie didn’t have anything to do with heaven, but you couldn’t miss it, because everything in that movie was explicitly spelled out, complete with “What I learned from this experience was…” like we were in a Sunday School classroom instead of a movie theater. The movie wasn’t great, but the message was still helpful, especially for those in ministry or those who tend to always be giving and serving others.
When he was in that hospital bed for almost a year, unable to move, unable to do anything for himself, Piper ended up shutting out the people who loved him most, not only because of depression and his struggle to process it all, but because he didn’t want to be a burden. Many of us who are servants by nature, or by our faith in Christ, struggle with allowing others to serve us. God put Piper in a place of such incredible weakness that he had to allow others to serve him. And he learned that he had been robbing others of the blessing of serving him.
No one is strong all the time. Trust me, I know. I’ve always fancied myself Superwoman, but God has shown me otherwise on more than one occasion now. And I’m a better person for it. A weaker person, but Scripture says that’s better. Because when we are weak, He is strong.
Everyone will have those moments of weakness. Will we humbly lean on God’s strength or bitterly begrudge our weakness? Will we choose to let others in and be mutually blessed or will we pretend we don’t need each other and slip deeper and deeper into despair?
These are good questions, and a great message for a culture that is asking a lot of questions about depression right now. But it could have been done just as easily in a 5-10 minute Godtube video. Perhaps done even better.
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I went to see “90 Minutes In Heaven”, Sunday, September 20, 2015. Let me start by saying that I first heard the announcement about this movie about a week ago. Today was my first opportunity to see it. I am not a “movie” person, so this was a big deal for me to actually go to see this movie.
I have watched Don Piper tell his story, on different programs, many times over the course of the last several years, and I bought his book, “90 Minutes In Heaven”.
Each time I’ve heard Don Piper speak, I have always wished a movie would be made about his story. Well it’s finally here. This movie was beautifully done. For someone who is critical of movies, I was impressed by the openness in this movie. Don Piper has always talked about the depression that he endured during his months of recovery. He has been very open about the overwhelming dispare he suffered as his body slowly-but-surely healed from his injuries, but his mind did not m. He has been clear to explain how it was unbearable for him to be back on earth, in this life, after seeing heaven. Most of us have heard stories of others who have also died and gone to heaven, but his is the story I wanted to see on the “big screen”. I wanted to see the back story of the people who were there on the bridge. I wanted to see who was there during Don Piper’s unsettling misery during his recovery. I wanted to see who was there to visit him and hear the conversations that he had with the people who loved him, and willed him back to life.
So many questions that I had, even though this was “a movie”, were answered. I now have a sense of what his wife endured. I was able to see how his children, his parents, his church family and others may have related to his experience.
“I” did not need two hours of a movie about heaven. “I” needed to see just how deep that experience took Don Piper, and how he came through it. It has always been clear to me that Don Piper, and others who died and returned to tell their stories, as well as those who went to hell, have found their purpose in life. For me, the purpose of the movie is to explain, to the thousands of us who are familiar with Don Piper’s story, what happened during those 150 days of his painful journey to recovery. On the other side, those who are not sure about heaven, hell, God, Christ or spirituality, hopefully some questions were answered that they might accept Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. After all, we are here to lead people to Christ.
The only part that I felt was missing from the movie was a “direct” invitation. In my opinion, the movie itself was an invitation, and some may have trusted in Christ as a result of the movie. But, unless I missed it, I thought a clear call to the altar, would have given those who have not made a decision for Christ, the opportunity to ask Christ into their lives, during the movie.
This movie hit it out of the park for me. I loved it.
Sandy