I missed all the hoopla regarding this book, Heaven is for Real. I’ve been mildly interested in near-death experiences since I was younger and it became a popular phenomenon. Who wouldn’t want to hear someone talk about the great unknown and what happens when we die? Like a lot of supernatural things people talk about, though, I take what I hear with a grain of salt. I’m kinda skeptical, but when I saw trailers for the movie, my interest piqued and it also felt like a chance to catch up on the book I missed reading.
The story is charming. The father of this family is a pretty nice guy. Todd Burpo (Greg Kinnear) is the full-time pastor of his rural church in Imperial, Nebraska. He coaches at the local high school (presumably as a volunteer), he serves in the volunteer fire department, and he’s a doting father to two kids and a caring husband for his wife. We all partly know the story coming in — that his small son dies or almost dies and goes to heaven and then comes back to tell about it. I thought it would come much sooner when I saw this guy working on the high torque tension bar of a garage door opener (those things pack a mighty force that can kill), but it was an innocuous and sometimes hard-to-detect ruptured appendix. The whole family is on a vacation to Denver, where the appendix ruptures. The time to return home and discover that it’s not just some food poisoning or something necessitates a trip to the hospital, where young Colton Burpo (Connor Corum) is rushed into surgery.
After recovering, the little Colton starts dropping bombs every so casually about his visit with Jesus in Heaven. The way it unfolds is cute and it’s funny how it unnerves some of the townfolk. We can all probably interject ourselves in this story somewhere, and it’s a good exercise in asking ourselves where we’d be in terms of reaction. I have my own biases going in (I admit, I believe in the afterlife and the notion of a near-death visitation by an angel or supreme being doesn’t surprise me), so I get tickled watching the movie.
What really inspires me, though, in watching the movie, are the subtle things, like the small community stopping to pray for little Colton when his health was at a crisis. It makes me feel joy to think about how God might respond to prayer and just delight in us reaching out to Him. The conflict in the movie becomes a lot more about how the townfolk will or will not come to grips with the supernatural story the young lad is telling them. All the financial struggle and strain the family goes through adds some realistic tension to the plot, too. The highs and lows experienced by this loving married couple painted a vulnerable and realistic viewpoint of just how fragile and rewarding married life can be — at times you think they’ll scream and explode at each other (they pretty much do) and other times they’re like little lovebirds — kinda like real life, ya know?
It’s definitely fodder for a lot of curious speculation on what Heaven might be like. Being known and knowing family members “up there” certainly sounds exciting. This movie pushes those buttons, but it shows a lot of restraint in not painting with too bold or too dogmatic of a brush. I think it makes the story more compelling.
Little extras, like comments on the behavior of the real life Colton Burpo from his sister, bring laughs and the deleted scenes show some interesting perspective on the story, how it’s told and what it might’ve felt like had other details been interjected (but instead hit the cutting room floor). The Blu-Ray disc has two more featurettes that the standard DVD disc does not, though it does have the “Colton Goes to Heaven” featurette. This combo pack includes Blu-Ray, DVD and digital HD version. It was cool to hear the real-life perspective from the Burpo’s about their experience.
I give it a thumb up in the air.
Oh, and this is what Jesus looks like. I’m not so sure about that, but hey, it’s from an alleged eye witness. A girl from the Eastern bloc area had a near-death experience and has painted what she saw in vivid detail.
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