The Reason

The Reason is a faith-based story that exploits tragedy to instruct us in the need to believe in God, even in tough times, offering the characters odd bits of magic to hold them until faith arrives. For believers, the message will resonate, as performances are good and the movie is a competently made message-delivery vehicle. Those who don't look to movies for instructions on how to live, or subscribe to the beliefs therein, will find this cloying and downright unrealistic. For example, doctors don't spend all their time waiting hand and foot on one single patient, as portrayed here.

Unlike other more successful movies about the possibility of spiritual underpinnings, such as It's a Wonderful Life or The Bishop's Wife, this lacks much in the way of creativity and the spark of whimsy that makes medicine go down easier. When a long-lost necklace shows up right after a family member's death, it's viewed as a God-proving miracle and posed as some kind of compensation for terrible loss. It suggests that the dead person is "doing well" somewhere other than among the living. To compare the value of a necklace with the value of a loved one will surely seem absurdly insensitive to anyone who has experienced grief.