Seven Days in Utopia is a feel-good sports flick with faith-based undertones. The storyline follows amateur golfer Luke Chisholm (Lucas Black) in the aftermath of a major meltdown on the links. Chisholm takes off in his car heading nowhere and crashes in the field of Johnny Crawford (Robert Duvall), who just happens to be an ex-PGA golfer. Crawford promises to restore Luke’s game to him if he’ll sit under his tutelage for a week. As Chisholm spends seven days amongst the townsfolk and amidst the beautiful scenery of Utopia, Texas, Crawford challenges him toward inner change as a pathway to success in golf and life. Stars Duvall and Black, who previously shared the screen in Get Low, take the movie farther than its script would go with lesser talent, but it has the kind of predictability that keeps it from reaching the level of great cinema. That said, it is not nearly so bad as some critics would have you believe.
Gary M. Kramer, at salon.com, calls it a “sermon masquerading as a sports film.” It is true that the movie opens with a Bible verse on the screen and has pointers to Christianity throughout (talk about God working, a Bible as a gift, attendance at church), but it hardly qualifies as Christian propaganda. For one thing, the advice dispensed by Johnny Crawford sounds more like it comes from the lips of Yoda than Billy Graham. “Don’t think; see it, feel it, trust it,” is hardly a presentation of the gospel! I’d agree with the Christianity Today reviewer who wrote that the film “offers pretty thin theology.” But I don’t look to movies for theological training. I want entertainment, and I’m happy when once in a while that entertainment supports rather than trashes the Christian faith.
Critic Roger Ebert was not entertained by the movie. He begins his review, “I would rather eat a golf ball than see this movie again.” What bothers him so much about it? Ebert was “looking for a twinkle in [Duvall's] eyes as he inflicts young Luke with his bull$#!t,” hoping Crawford would be revealed as a con-man. The critic can’t come to terms with all things wholesome in the movie. He particularly complains about the portrayal of the residents of Utopia, Texas:
“Let me give you an idea of what good people these are. Many things go wrong during the week. Many, many things. All this in the land beyond San Antonio. Do we hear the f-word? Do we hear the s-word? Do we even hear the d-word or the h-word? No, dear reader. This is the first general audience movie in quite some time that is rated G. Robert Duvall must seldom have had a greater challenge to overcome.”
Apparently, Roger Ebert likes his movies to be filled with the kind of profanity he employs in his review. How dare Hollywood release a movie for adults that is rated G?
I say, “Let’s see more such movies.” I’m not opposed to darker films with the edgier realism Ebert seems to long for. But there ought to be a place alongside such cinema for movies that aim at uplifting rather than wallowing in the gutter. There is nothing wrong with some entertaining escapism. Though it has its share of hokey platitudes, Seven Days in Utopia can be thought-provoking. Luke is challenged to bury the lies that have been guiding his life, such as his obsessive drive to please his father. Who doesn’t have such lies that would best be buried in order to live a more emotionally and spiritually balanced life? Even if the faith in the movie lacks deep content, its general Christian orientation points to a positive pathway we wish more would walk.
To borrow a term from Francis Schaeffer, Seven Days in Utopia is more pre-evangelism than evangelism proper. It raises issues and points in a direction that can prepare a viewer to be open to the gospel, without engaging in a bait-and-switch tactic of promising entertainment and delivering a heavy-handed pitch for Jesus. That is to its credit. (If there is any heavy-handed pitching going on, it is for Callaway golf products. I suppose it took a sports film to demonstrate product placement on steroids!) A website address flashes on the screen at the close of the movie as a source to learn more about the movie’s ending. That site does include a straightforward gospel presentation along with a continuation of the storyline. This is creative evangelism, though I doubt it is a strategy that will catch on. The movie is complete in itself.
If you can accept Seven Days in Utopia for what it is — an inspirational golf story that never reaches depths of profundity — then you may find it more enjoyable than eating a golf ball! Robert Duvall, now 80, excels at playing old codgers like Johnny Crawford. He’s starred in better movies with Christian themes (Tender Mercies, The Apostle, Get Low), but he is still a pleasure to watch in this film. And I, for one, would like to send Hollywood the message that there are still adults who can be entertained by well-produced G-rated movies.
[For my reflections on Duvall's earlier movie, Get Low, go to: http://www.colsoncenter.org/the-center/columns/changepoint/16753-get-low-and-the-gospel]
