An "Amazing" concept

Despite the appearance of being one of those "dry, boring, period piece" movies, here is why I think today's Gen-Xers, Gen-Yers and Generation Next-ers should embrace the new release, "Amazing Grace."

How many of us innately hunger for a life with meaning and purpose? The man at the heart of the film, William Wilberforce, absolutely embodied that. Who wants to have convictions? Real ones, that withstand time, repeated defeat, unpopularity, and even the political fringes of war? Wilberforce could give lessons, and in a way, this film delivers them. One of the early, noteworthy lines that stick with viewers (and several in it will) comes from a friend who reminds our hero that his devotion to his cause (in this case, the abolition of the British slave trade) has taken his youth, and his health. Who among us today would sacrifice either? And what kind of cause could possibly be worth it?

Here's a guy who literally gets ulcers after reading a letter from a fellow abolitionist about the brutalities seen against Africans on foreign soil. Here's a guy who'd rather fold his cards than take his rightfully-earned kitty of cash because an opponent has included his African butler as payment. Here's a guy haunted by visions of slaves bound-and-chained in the reflections seen from his mirror. Here's a guy so depressed after years of defeat and yet still so impassioned about the ongoing injustice of it all that he nearly bites off the head of the pretty young thing he's recounting his tale to. She tells him that's a sign that rather than trying to force himself to swallow injustice that is so distasteful, he should spew the poison out.

I daresay, I know peers that would give their right arms for that kind of passion, vision, verve. Had they a man to emulate like that, one grounded in the steady resolution that peaceful, moral, honest life cannot be lived unless a singular evil is completely eradicated, I do believe society might not know what hit it. And that is compelling stuff, because, as we learn from the film, what grounds Wilberforce is not his cause, but his faith. He knows his Creator, the same being whose workmanship he sees reflected in spider webs and wet grass, did not order a world where a man would enslave and dehumanize another man. That kind of conviction is utterly calm, and at heart, unshakeable, though all hell (ill health, war, false accusations from former friends) conspire to shake it. Is it any wonder Africans who never met the man called him "King" Wilberforce?

I love the history in this film. I love the humor in it (and yes, even the threads of romance.) I love how the power-hungry nuts that are so hard to crack with the god's-honest truth finally succumb to the weight of it. (Refc: 'noblesse oblige'). I love that people who may never have known the origin of the world's most famous hymn, likely performed most regularly on the bagpipes, can finally discover it was written by a repentant slave trader. By the end of the film it should be clear to the audience this man truly would have gone to his grave without regret had he never lived to see the fruit of all his labors. If that's not a hero, I don't know what is.

But don't take my word for it. Go see for yourselves.