I AM DAVID 2003
Director: Paul Feig
Writers: Anne Holm – Original Novel
          Paul Feig – Screenplay
My Rating: 7.6/10
Personally, I liked this movie. I will be adding it to my list of spiritually significant films, and will include it on my list of films to use for spiritual cinema. When I was adding this movie to my database I reviewed some of the comments that critics shared, I found the most common complaint to be that there were too many positive coincidences for the film to be believable. For me, it was exactly these so-called coincidences which made the film so enjoyable. It is my belief that when one is committed to a goal, the Universe conspires to help make it happen. It would appear to me that the writer’s share my truth.
Through this story, we caught a glimpse of the extremes of human behavior ranging from ugly cruelty to loving kindness. Most of the people encountered fell somewhere in-between these two.
We witnessed the evolution of this beautiful 12 year-old David (Played by Ben Tibber) as he escaped the only life he had ever really known, by courageously throwing himself into a world of uncertainty; freedom being more important than the safety of the known. While some of the assistance he received along his journey may have seemed a bit too fortunate, I did not find anything that seemed unreasonable.
The lovely ending was foreshadowed so effectively that even though we knew what was coming it did not detract from the feel-good payoff at the climax.
My favorite scene occurred when David had the following conversation with a dear, sweet woman who helped him, immensely:
A Lesson from Mrs. Sophie Anderson
Scene from movie I Am David
David: Why do people do such terrible things?
Sophie: Like what?
David: Like beat people and kill them and make them prisoners.
Sophie: Well, most people don’t do that David.
David: My friend Johann always used to tell me, “Trust no one.â€
Sophie: Well, Life wouldn’t be worth living, if we did that David.
You can be cautious, but you have to let people in.
David: How can you know if they are bad or not?
Sophie: David, Most people are good. They have families, and friends, and they just want to live their lives as happily as they can. While there always will be bad people in this world, and you’ll usually know them when you meet them, and sometimes you won’t; but you can’t let that stop you from living your life fully, and freely, and making friends and seeing the goodness in people. Because if you don’t do that you will never find any happiness.
I Am David reminded me that to live without trusting is not to live at all, and that to exchange safety for freedom is a tradeoff for those who are fear-dominated. The movie may have been a bit hokey, but I loved it, and am most grateful for the reminders.