There’s this thing writers and directors do in movies where they want to make a shocking event seem more shocking by depicting everything before it as this magical fairy land where everything is perfect and happiness is a blanket for snugglin’. The most hilarious example of which is Commando, where Arnold is feeding deer and eating ice cream with his daughter Alyssa Milano before the fat Australian in the chain mail shirt shows up and Arnie has to start cutting arms off. Bad Australian! Things used to be so perfect! Deer everywhere!
Well now we’ve got a new contender for the throne of whatever you call that “calm before the storm” scene: Heaven Is For Real, the movie based on the story of Colton Burpo, who died and went to Heaven but brought back the secret of making lots of money. In this clip, Colton and his dad, Todd, played by Greg Kinnear, are such a comically perfect father-son duo that you kind of wish their house would burn down.
This terrible scene really has everything: big, southern house with a stately front porch; son excitedly jumping into his father’s arms shouting “daddy!”; the women inside singing songs together like a family of Disney princesses; a dog barking in the distance that the son adorably imitates; and father promising to take his son out for pizza if only he wasn’t TOO BUSY SAVING LIVES! All ending with the incredible line, “Daddy, if I’m with you, I won’t be afraid.”
Meanwhile, they just left the whole thing underexposed because f*ck it.
It took me about five seconds to start praying someone would get addicted to smack. A family that randomly bursts into song? Jesus Christ, what a nightmare. This is so schmaltzy it makes Nicholas Sparks look like Cormac McCarthy.
This movie is going to make a billion dollars and I’m never going to stop vomiting.