A beautiful film about how war changes people, and how difficult it is for them to return to civilian life. The picture introduces us to chaplain Darren and his family. The protagonist, along with his beloved wife and children, moves to a military town, gets acquainted with future colleagues and their families and prepares for his first trip to Afghanistan. Darren’s wife, Heather, joins the military wives’ association that exists there, helping wives cope with their husbands’ experiences in the war, helping military families, sending mail/humanitarian supplies to war, and more. Heather soon becomes a friend of his neighbor Tony, who periodically quarrels with her husband because of the consequences of his post-traumatic syndrome and bouts of aggression, as well as Amanda, who learned about pregnancy just after her husband was sent to war.
Once in the war, Darren, for the most part, is engaged in the parting of fighters before the battle, and also conducts religious conversations with those who would like to understand themselves and their relationship to God. It sounds strange, I didn’t know that there were such people in the war before the movie. As you know, there are no atheists in the trenches, and one way or another, most fighters think about God over time, in particular, about why he allows wars, murder and suffering of people. Sometimes even the chaplain begins to doubt what he preaches. The topic is quite interesting, and is generally unobtrusive.
In addition, the film stunningly reveals two key themes of any military history – how a person changes in war and how difficult it is for him to adapt to life as a civilian, to build relationships with a family whose domestic problems sometimes seem insignificant against the background of what he saw on the battlefield. Let’s add the specifics of post-traumatic syndrome, hard-to-control anger and inability to talk about what really bothers him – and now the most durable family gets into a serious crisis, from which you can only get out together. Everyone will need to put in a lot of effort on their part and see the effort the other side is making. It is not as simple as it seems.
In the film there is quite a bit of action, it is not a classic military action movie, it is more of a psychological military drama. Probably anti-war. The unambiguous advantages of the picture include the fact that for America it is atypical lack of excessive pathos and invulnerable heroes. The actors performed their roles wonderfully – you believe everyone, and the characters remain in the memory for a long time even after the credits. Pictures and music also make the most pleasant impressions. There's nothing to complain about. The only thing that, in my opinion, the viewer may not like – religious themes are still a lot, you could cut it in the first part of the film. But it's more of a nitpicking category.
9 out of 10