The Shack

Sam Worthington finds God - and she's not what he imagined...

Sam Worthington

For Mackenzie Phillips (Sam Worthington), the shack is a place of pain. It conjures up the memories of a father he called Papa who submitted his mother and himself to regular beatings. It is perhaps ironic, then, that now he’s a grown-up married man with three children of his own, his youngest daughter has nicknamed God ‘Papa.’ Then the shack itself takes on a new identity, producing emotions of untold intensity…

You don’t come across a film like this very often. Not only is it profoundly old-fashioned, but simply quite audacious. Based on the self-published novel by William Paul Young, it attempts to open the eyes of its audience to a whole new perspective of life – and of faith. Unfortunately, its soporific pace does it no favours and only the most devout and broad-minded are likely to embrace its message of saintly forgiveness.

JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

Cast: Sam Worthington, Octavia Spencer, Tim McGraw, Radha Mitchell, Avraham Aviv Alush, Alice Braga, Graham Greene, Megan Charpentier, Gage Munroe, Amélie Eve.

Dir Stuart Hazeldine, Pro Gil Netter and Brad Cummings, Screenplay John Fusco, Andrew Lanham and Destin Cretton, from the novel by William Paul Young, Ph Declan Quinn, Pro Des Joseph C. Nemec III, Ed William Steinkamp, Music Aaron Zigman, Costumes Stacy Caballero and Karin Nosella.

TIK Films (Hong Kong) Limited/Gil Netter Productions/Windblown Media-Entertainment One.
132 mins. USA. 2017. Rel: 9 June 2017. Cert. 12A.