Making a movie about God can be a hard subject to convey to audiences, mainly because the deity is usually never represented in any real form other than as a voice from above.
And that is exactly how God is portrayed in the new movie, "Conversations with God," opening in theatres today.
The movie is based on a series of books written by Neale Donald Walsch, who in his seven-novel series describes actual conversations that he believes to have had directly with God.
In the film, Walsch is played by Henry Czerny, a little-known actor who has made appearances in films such as "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" and 1996's "Mission: Impossible."
The film opens after Walsch has received an injury from a car accident that has left him with a broken neck. Divorced and alone, Walsch has no one to turn to for help, and when he can't get hired anywhere because of the neck brace he must wear, he soon loses his apartment.
Walsch ends up sleeping in a tent in the park and the longer he goes without work the worse his situation becomes - he even has to resort to eating leftover food out of dumpsters.
Through several unexplained events that all seem to be pointing Walsch in the right direction, he ends up getting his life back on track somewhat.
After further disappointments, however, Walsch again ends up depressed and unsure of his future.
It is then that he writes an angry letter to God, to which a loud voice responds, "Do you really want an answer to all these questions or are you just venting?"
And that is when Walsch's conversations with God begin, and that is how he becomes a best-selling author.
In the end, the film tells a very uplifting story about someone who truly hits rock-bottom and through faith is able to rise to amazing levels of success (In reality the first book in Walsch's series stayed on the New York Times Best-Seller List for 137 weeks).
Another positive aspect of the movie is that the "conversations" Walsch has with God seem to be much more non-denominational and centered around acceptance rather than judgmental thinking and exclusion.
It doesn't take long, however, for viewers to realize that the film was obviously produced with a very small budget, and seems to be made for a much narrower audience of Christian fans than for mainstream America as a whole.
The music score keeps the grittiest moments of the film from being too dark, and even when Walsch spends time among the homeless in the park, their language and mannerisms remain squeaky clean for the film's religious audience.
The acting also leaves much to be desired, which could partly be blamed on the film's low budget, but could also be the fault of novice director, Stephen Simon, who only directed one movie previous to this one - 2003's "Indigo," which received less than stellar critical reviews.
Walsch's book, which was the basis for the film, has also been criticized as utilizing several age-old philosophical concepts originated by people like Plato and Socrates, and simply putting them in a modern context.
In the end, audiences and readers will have to decide for themselves if they believe Walsch or not, which could just be a matter of faith.
