Missionary Films

Watching God's Army and The Best Two Years in the same night enabled me to see differences that I otherwise might not have seen. These two movies are completely different in their portrayal of missionary life and it made me really think about how I think it should be depicted on screen.

Having never served a mission maybe I'm in no position to judge a films portrayal of it, but I felt like in God's Army they were straining to show every single bad situation a missionary could find himself/herself in. I didn't feel like God's Army was inspirational at all. Sure there were certain isolated inspirational moments and lessons to be learned in the movie. For instance when the senior missionary rips into the missionary who is reading anti-Mormon literature and planting doubt in the greenie. I found myself cheering, "Yah! You tell him! Read OUR stuff for a change!" And when the senior missionary told the greenie that he could choose whether or not he really wanted to believe, and that while he could teach him the rules and what to say, "what gets you up in the morning, talking to strangers, I can't teach you that. That you have to learn on your own." And the story of Benny being healed and then baptized was very touching. However, while these incidents were inspirational, I felt like they were just trying to hold their head above water in a sea of doubt, despair and negativity. I felt like the non-inspirational aspects of the movie overshadowed the inspirational ones. Now, I realize that for a movie to sell it needs a certain dramatic effect, an effect you probably won't capture if you stick to solely the mundane tasks of every day missionary life, however I do wonder how much of and what kind of drama we need. I thought The Best Two Years captured the same rigors of mission life without all the doubting, negativity and sadness.

I felt like The Best Two Years was truly an inspirational story. The part where the wayward, lazy missionary finally realizes that he really does have a testimony was so touching. And I love how they showed that a hard working, even if naive, greenie can change the lives of those around him. I also really liked how they demonstrated that office, status, and numbers isn't everything in life or on in the mission field.

In other words, I think both films have their good points, however if I were to choose which one I would want my 18 year old soon-to-be-missionary to see, I think I would choose The Best Two Years. I agree that you don't want to give future missionaries the impression that missions are a piece of cake and they'll never have any problems, but you still want a mission to be seen as a positive thing rather than a trial of faith in every case.