The Giant Mechanical Man

I was really impressed by this movie. I'm not going to lie and say I didn't check it out on Rotten Tomatoes first to make sure it was a good movie. I thought maybe it was an old Jenna Fischer movie from before she got famous, but actually it was made in 2012 and was quite excellent.

Basically she's a woman in her thirties who doesn't have her life figured out (hence why I wanted to watch), but then she meets this man in his thirties who also doesn't have his life figured out, or at least not in the way society says we should. She's out of work, and he makes little money working as a street performer as a "giant mechanical man," but then they both end up working at the zoo, which is where they meet.

I liked this movie because

A) It was beautifully shot. The scenes of the city and just of everything were captivating.

B) Most of the writing was realistic and hilarious. I especially liked the phone conversation where the sister says they're out of dip, and it sounds like she's talking to someone at the party, but she's actually talking to her.

C) There were a lot of genuine and sincere moments that were quite believable and well-acted.

But here's the thing. I think all good romantic movies are good because they are a metaphor of God's love for us. He loves and treasures us so much, and though we may sometimes see it through an actual person on earth, there is not one person that will make us feel satisfyingly loved and treasured at every moment for the rest of our lives.

But that's okay! I think knowing that, allows us to give grace to the people we're in relationships with and helps us to love them better, and it helps us draw closer to God. If there was one person on earth that loved us in a complete and perfect way, then we wouldn't need God, or that person would be God or something, which is not the case (obvs).

John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." 

If the man in the movie was God, that verse would say, "For the man so loved the woman that he had some things in common with her that they shared beautifully, and he gave her sincere compliments, and then they had sex." (Nice, but not quite as redemptive.)