What If God Were the Sun?

SUN would appear to be two movies sort of at odds with each other. One is a tale of love's redemption that revolves around the growing affection between an emotionally distraught nurse (Chabert) and her charge, a never-say-die elderly woman (Rowlands) racked with cancer. The other is a ghost story, more or less, as the nurse tries to deal with the murder of her father, a community activist killed by members of the community. Now, without knowing the novel, I would say someone decided to throw a little GHOST WHISPERER into this otherwise straightforward tale of love and compassion. Reason? Chabert played GW star Jen Hewitt's sister on PARTY OF FIVE and also did a spot-on imitation of Hewitt in a recent, spoofy remake of an '80s romantic comedy that stared Hewitt, plus Chabert has even appeared on GW as a guest star with ties to Hewitt. Chabert looks and acts just like Hewitt, only better, and is just as pretty and big-busted. My wife stopped to watch the movie because at first she thought Chabert was Hewitt! Make no mistake: This is a chick flick with no redeeming qualities for the guys. But Chabert is a terrific little actress I happen to admire, and Rowlands is a past master of these roles. She has in fact played this same sort of role in at least two other movies. The ghost angle amounts to little, by the way, and could just as easily have been discarded.

If you are a newcomer to Lifetime movies and "What If God Were The Sun" was your first Lifetime movie, then you will become hooked. More often than not, Lifetime movies mirror themselves and are predictable to say the least. This movie, however, is a flawless work of art. Stephen Tolkin took a great leap forward in presentation for Lifetime movies, not to mention the gripping performances by Lacey Chabert and Gena Rowlands. I don't mean to specify excessively but the bulk of the power of this film came from Lacey Chabert's eyes. For the entirety of the film her eyes dominated the screen evoking intensely deep feelings. She was right on the mark with her performance, a feat I wasn't sure she could accomplish.

The writing was exactly what it needed to be: an opportunity for the actors to perform well. Lacey Chabert delivered and Gena Rowland's Melissa was truly a character that the audience was able to feel for.

Hands down a perfect ten. It was truly a magical watch.

What a load of rubbish. I watched it through to the end from the pure fascination of wondering how much worse it could get.

A nurse (and I am trained as such) would not be allowed to do many of the features portrayed.

For example plunging a needle into the heart muscle.

Perhaps this is not the case in America or wherever the film was made.

If so - God help any patient under that nurse's care.

Probably should have been given more time off to get her head together - probably in a psychiatric ward! I hope I don't have to struggle for more words to get this review published.

What a load of garbage.

Or don't you accept anything that is not favourable?

Did you ever cry in a movie so hard that people walked into the room and thought something terrible just happened to you? That's me at the end of watching this movie. But sometimes in the movie it was really happy too--and the acting was so amazing, Lacy (sp?)Chabert is like my favorite favorite favorite now--she was so real--I felt like I was watching somebody just going through stuff and not like they were in a movie. It made me think about all the happiness and sadness in life and how you have to try to make every day of your life a great day like Gena Rowland's character does in the movie. My mom loved it too, she was crying as hard as I was, we ran out of Kleenex half way through the movie. And I SWEAR my brother was crying too but if he saw that I wrote this he would kill me. THANK YOU LIFETIME!

Probably out of being curious of the odd title, I watched this movie last night, and, though a man, found that it reminded me of my own suffering at this time in my life.

My closest sibling (like Alma, a devout Catholic) passed away from cancer just before Christmas, and, I found myself working back at the hospital just 48 hours after the funeral - likely much too soon, as I've been finding out over the past two months.

Similar to Lacey, I was "doing well" until late March, when, a social worker friend of mine (a woman the same age as my sister) became very ill, and, somehow, the stress of this new illness made me suddenly feel that I was unable to handle the stress of what happened in December.

Since then those at the hospital know that I'm struggling, and even a priest or two that I know are concerned, and, while I get counseling, I've decided that it's something that I'm going to have to deal with, and hope that things will get better as time passes.

Unlike Lacey, I don't have a live-in friend or spouse to go home to (not that that helped her, either), so, being alone (without the frequent phone support of my sister) is very difficult to deal with. Being at the hospital, well, I'm tempted to say it doesn't help, but, I should know that being around others does help, but, as Lacey also found, sometimes it doesn't.

This weekend will be the real test - my nephew is getting married, and, there's much pressure to spend time with others in my family, but, I'm tempted just to spend time at the hospital.

While the movie did stray into a peculiar fantasy at times, it did seem to be meant for me to watch it - as Lacey found, God does indeed work in mysterious, but loving ways...

Frank