The Rapture
It's been several months since I watched this movie, and I'm still not sure what to make of it. Is it a haunting religious allegory about the true worth of faith, or a Lifetime movie of the week gone horribly wrong? The production value is atrocious relative to the script, but then again parts of the script sound like it was pulled from a pamphlet handed out on street corners by one of those nuts always braying about the end of the world being nigh. Some of the actors seem overwhelmed (Rogers) or out of place (Duchovny) with the material, while others (Patton) fit their parts like a glove.
Yet when it's all over, you can't help but ponder Tolkin's message
about how faith can control our fate. The journey from moral drifter to
true believer to religious zealot to rejection of God by Sharon (Rogers) is difficult to endure, for all the aforementioned reasons and on its own merit. If you surrender total control of your life to a higher power, how responsible are you for actions dictated by that power, no matter how reprehensible they turn out to be? Could you live with yourself, or with a God
who would allow you to do such things? I don't have the answers to
these questions, but I do know there are probably better ways to ponder
them than watching The Rapture.
- March 2, 2010
DVD Extras
Only a director's commentary track which I wasn't about to listen to by sitting through the movie again.