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| Sam and Luke with two younger brothers. |
I was unable to watch the 5000 days movie: two brothers directly after conference on Sunday but I was able to watch it Monday night late. It really was an awesome movie. It fulfilled the promise of making a movie that was uplifting and had some meaning. The movie works excellently to bring you into the relationship of two brothers. The relationship isn't static over the years and it goes from hero worship of the younger toward the older to distance and wanting to be different. Then it curves back around as they grow and mature and the relationship becomes best friends and surely one of their most meaningful relationships in life. It culminates as the younger brother follows his older brother's example to serve as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The movie brings some strong feelings to those that are watching. Maybe the stronger your relationships or past relationships with your siblings will amplify the feelings you will feel as you watch these two very real siblings having a real relationship and growing up together and then apart. They help each other to reach personal goals and encourage and strengthen each other whether at home or with one serving a mission and the other at home.
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| Luke participating in a pioneer trek. |
This is a wonderful movie that I fully intend to watch again and maybe again and again (which is very rare for me). One of the best things is that Producer and Director, Rick Stevenson tells us that this is only the first movie in the project. His video work was of several children as they grew up and he has several more movies in the process of being made.
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| Rick Stevenson. |
Rick Stevenson is not a member of the church but turns out to be related to the boys in this movie. He was looking for people in the Seattle area that would agree to let him video tape the children through their childhood and early adult years and wanted to show some boys with good values.
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| Luke on his mission in Cambodia. |
He develops throughout the theme of building a relationship which blossoms and becomes fully realized with Sam as he serves as a missionary in Chile. Sam realizes that to love others you must feel what they are feeling which of course has the risk of being overwhelmed. To see how he relentlessly pushes himself to grow as a missionary and realizes that he must learn to love the people better and how that leads him to feel some of the things that they feel. It is really an introspective part of the movie that can teach us all to realize what is part of loving others and the benefits of doing it.
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| Sam as a youngster. |
Other themes that are mentioned are hard work paying off, and never giving up. Sam deals with some depression as a teenager as well which will touch some people who have experience with that (isn't that everybody?). Sam was serving in Chile during the devastating earthquake and his videos and description from the area are meaningful as well, as are the feelings of the parents as they wait to find out if their son/missionary survived.
I am looking forward to the additional movies that he puts out.
We got to watch this after conference and we really loved it!! There really was so much feeling captured in the movie. We really liked seeing the boys grow up and seeing their relationship evolve. I didn't know there were more movies to come so that should be cool to see those ones as well! Thanks for telling us on your blog and in email about this so we could watch it!!! :)
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