• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Film
  • DVD
  • Editorial
  • About ScreenFish

ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Home
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • News
  • OtherFish
  • Podcast
  • Give
You are here: Home / Film / Defining Moments – It’s about life.

Defining Moments – It’s about life.

August 24, 2021 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

Stephen Wallis’s Defining Moments is a collection of intersecting stories about people who are facing those times in their lives that could well change everything. This is a light-hearted film that at times seems a bit ludicrous, but within that there are morsels of wisdom and understanding.

We meet Marina (Polly Shannon) who has returned home to visit her father Chester (Burt Reynolds, in his final role). Chester declares that he’ll be dead in nine months. He feels he’s lived enough. He wants to spend the time saying goodbye. Jack (Shawn Roberts) blurts out something stupid that makes his girlfriend Terri (Kelly Van de Burg) doubt their future together. Laurel (Tammy Blanchard) is facing an unexpected late life pregnancy and the discovery that her doctor father (Eric Peterson) is showing signs of Alzheimer’s. And Dave (Dillon Casey) is hospitalized after shooting his ear off in his (about) 30th suicide attempt.

The story weaves through ten of chapters (with titles like “A Moment of Clarity”, “A Moment of Change”, A Moment of Gratitude”, or “A Moment of Truth”. Little by little the people involved must face their issues in search of that moment that will change their lives forever.

The film uses a lot of license in its portrayal of these lives. Much of it just isn’t all that realistic. However, at its core the film is about the relationships between people and how those relationships and the way we build them form our lives.

The film opens and closes with voice over monologs that focus on a cemetery. That brings to mind the assurance that we all face death. But the opening voice over as it ponders the thousand of people buried in the cemetery: “How many people are still remembered? I mean at what point does that last memory of you disappear?” That calls to mind a comment from Ecclesiastes: (For there is no enduring remembrance of the wise or of fools, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten.” (Eccl. 2:16 NRSV) Yet mortality is not the point of the film. It notes that we all die, but also that we all live. And it is that living that is important.

Defining Moments is in theaters and available of VOD.

To see our interview with Stephen Wallis and Eric Peterson on YouTube, click here. To stream audio from the interview, click here.

Photos courtesy of VMI Worldwide.

Share it!

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Film, Reviews Tagged With: Canada, death, LGBTQ, pregnancy

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

THE SF NEWS

Get a special look, just for you.

sf podcast

Hot Off the Press

  • GIVEAWAY! Advance Screening of 80 FOR BRADY!
  • Close – End of childhood innocence
  • Unstoppable Shorts at Slamdance 2023
  • Slamdance 2023: With Peter Bradley
  • Still more from Slamdance 2023
Find tickets and showtimes on Fandango.

where faith and film are intertwined

film and television carry stories which remind us of the stories God has woven since the beginning of time. come with us on a journey to see where faith and film are intertwined.

Footer

ScreenFish Articles

GIVEAWAY! Advance Screening of 80 FOR BRADY!

Close – End of childhood innocence

  • About ScreenFish
  • Privacy Policy

© 2023 · ScreenFish.net · Built by Aaron Lee

 

Loading Comments...