Meet the Mormons: my review of the movie

I took Zoë and attending the movie, "Meet the Mormons", with our Young Women group last night. It was fun to ride up and listen to Zoë and Anna (the YW I gave a ride) chat about different things. We met up with a few people from our ward (I think I saw maybe 12 people from our ward).

The movie was disappointing, and that is a little sad considering I had very low expectations. I felt like I was watching a prolonged MomronAd. The stories of the people they highlighted were really good, but there was so little background. The only "voice" you really heard was the person speaking in first person, although they did get some soundbites from family, coworkers, and friends. But, the whole I felt was lacking. Sure, it was inspiring to see the beautiful things some of these people did, but did it make me feel any closer to Christ? Actually, only twice: once when a man talked about how he distincly heard the Holy Ghost tell him to "go back to the fence" and when he also talked about how we can't be like the Dead Sea- always taking and never giving leaving us dead and salty and good for very little, but more like a  living lake that both receives but gives; and when another man talked about how it wasn't the location that was important, but more the prayer offered, that made a place sacred and special.

But, I have had those inspiring prompts from watching Halmark commercials.

Disappointing because it truly didn't address anything of the doctrine, or nod even to some of the things that DO make Mormons different. If members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are living lives they are supposed to, then they will be living the lives that will testify of the same things this movie did. I guess this movie might reach places where we don't have many members, and it might make people look around and ask "Well, who is a Mormon?"

I know I wasn't the target audience, but I do know that this left more holes than answered questions about Mormons. I read some reviews, and they also had the same sentiment: this didn't address any doctrine (mainstream, particular to Mormons, or controversial), it was one giant advertisement*, and it was uplifting but not necessarily inspirational. In fact, the Fusion advertisement that showed the quadripelegic with his body piercings and tatoos who became an engineer and developed his own steering wheel so he could control a racing car was about as uplifting as the movie!

Don't get me wrong. It was well done, the music was awesome (favs were the instrumentals for the Costa Rica piece and the Napal piece and the song "Glorious" sung by David Archuleta at the end). It was a good at showing that Mormons are people who believe in Christ and try to live good lives. So, go see it! It's worth donating to the American Red Cross. It is a good and uplifting movie. Just don't expect to learn much from it.

*reminds me of Elder David Bednar's talk in October 2014 conference when he said, "As members of the Church, we do not receive prizes or bonus points in a heavenly contest. We are not seeking simply to increase the numerical size of the Church.".