Based on the sleeper bestseller by Canadian author William P. Young, The Shack offers an enlightening - if dispiriting - vantage on contemporary, non-denominational Christianity.
This one nevertheless falls short, thanks to the plodding direction of Stuart Hazeldine, who also lets Worthington engage in the kind of mumbling whisper that some actors mistake for intensity.
It's one of those movies where you'll either decide to give in right away and sob for two hours straight or opt to fight it while your resentment slowly simmers to a rolling boil.
Most of its running time is taken with mollifying conversations between Mack and the movie's New Age-meets-Bible Belt oversimplifications of the Holy Trinity. It fits right into a long tradition of quasi-mystical pseudo-parables.
British director Stuart Hazeldine cranks up the digital effects to give a fairly interesting interpretation of heaven, but they cannot make up for how this is a sermon, turned into a play, dressed up with computer-aided show-and-tell.
The Shack wants to be a sincere exploration of faith and forgiveness but somehow manages to be both too innocuous and too off-putting for its own good.
To the film's credit is its willingness to dip into the deep end of dark matters instead of shying away from harsh truths and hard-earned faithlessness. Still, The Shack plods toward the Almighty - even when its characters are walking on water.
