SPIRITUAL focus on film July 19, 2004 Issue

The Day After Tomorrow—Beyond willpower

By Meg Dendler

I know I'd be willing to walk 15 miles through a blizzard to rescue my child. But where would I get the strength and courage to do it? On the drive home after watching the movie Day After Tomorrow, I gave that a lot of thought.

The story line follows paleoclimatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) and his family through cataclysmic changes in the earth's weather systems, which lead to landscape-altering storms and the next ice age. Jack's son (Jake Gyllenhaal) is trapped in New York City, and Jack promises him that he will come to his aid if he some other people holed up with him in the New York Public Library can just make it through the catastrophic storm.

Though this may be a big special-effects movie about the end of the world as we know it, the heart of Day After Tomorrow is revealed in the characters' reactions to challenges. Their self-sacrifice and courage gave me a glimpse of something greater than human compassion and ability. Those are moments when the divine really shines through.

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