Dragonfly

Dragonfly is a curious film that cannot decide what genre it belongs in—thriller, horror, adventure, or love story. Its TV ads play to the horror angle: A child with bulging eyes delivers a cryptic message after a near-death experience, and the specter of a dead woman looks in through a window on the proverbial stormy night.

The serious point engaged by this film is that the afterlife is real. The less serious point is its assumption that our dead loved ones may need to stay in touch with us. (Dragonfly's promotional materials express it this way: "When someone you love dies … are they gone forever?")

"I believe we are facing our own mortality, after September 11 and amid the war, and sometimes that comes in waves," director Tom Shadyac said in a telephone interview with Christianity Today. "It's a movie with hope."

In the film, Emily Darrow (Kathryn Erbe) dies while volunteering as a physician among the poor in Venezuela. Emily becomes one of the busiest ghosts in recent movie history, sending frequent messages to her husband, Joe (Kevin Costner), who is also a physician. Emily speaks to Joe through critically ill patients at the Chicago hospital where he works and through making infernal noise back at the family home.

The urgency of Emily's messages eventually becomes clear, but the effect feels like an overly elaborate magic trick. If Emily's ghost can knock objects off tables, or return her clothes to a closet with immaculate precision, can't she just come out and say what she wants? Has the afterlife prohibited communication except through making things go bump in the night?

We know the answer, of course: This is a movie, and direct communication would make Dragonfly a 15-minute art school experiment rather than a feature film. There are some treats along the way. Linda Hunt, in one of the better counterintuitive acts of casting, plays Sister Madeline, a nun who has learned a bit too much about near-death experiences. Kevin Costner turns in a performance similar to the haunted widower of Message in a Bottle. And a parrot named Big Bird is one of the most menacing avian actors since the murderous flocks of The Birds (1963).

Joe Darrow is a fairly rigid agnostic after he loses his wife, and what he undergoes in this film sabotages his disbelief in the afterlife. But Joe's new faith comes entirely through esoteric experiences. Perhaps that makes him an ideal protagonist for our culture, but it also makes Dragonfly a mixed blessing.

The film clearly rejects Enlightenment notions of reality, and thank God for that, but Dragonfly is too concerned with receiving messages from the other side. What if matters are settled between a couple when one spouse dies, and no outstanding messages need to be delivered? What trouble would we all be in if our understanding of heaven or hell or God depended on receiving messages from the dead? No wonder Scripture warns against seeking communication with the dead (Deut. 18:11).

Dragonfly is fun enough as a popcorn movie with an innovative plot twist. But as a reflection on heaven, life on Earth, and how the two interact, it's no more nutritious than popcorn.

Douglas LeBlanc edits The CT Review.

Copyright © 2002 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

What Other Critics Are Saying

In Message in a Bottle, Kevin Costner mailed letters to his dead wife by tossing them into the ocean. This week, in Dragonfly, Costner plays Joe, whose dead wife takes the initiative in maintaining contact. To cope with unexplainable signs and events, Joe seeks the help of a nun (Linda Hunt) and receives some counsel. The movie has critics scoffing. And the counsel Joe receives has given religious press critics a collective furrowed brow.

Nevertheless, the movie opened successfully. Clearly, film buffs are still eager for stories about contact with the dead, perhaps seeking assurance that death will reveal design and meaning in life. Perhaps September 11 still has enough hold on our minds and hearts that many are still seeking answers and insight. Beliefnet's interview with Dragonfly's director Tom Shadyac contains more interesting and provocative ideas than the film itself. Shadyac, a professing Christian, discusses how he believes movies offer promising possibilities for exploring tough spiritual questions.

Dragonfly has won a few fans, including Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat of Trinity Church Wall Street's Spirituality and Health. They argue, "Although there have been a handful of afterlife dramas proclaiming that love is stronger than death, this is one of the best. Dragonfly beautifully conveys how great gifts can be hidden in death and how they can bear fruit in our lives if we only have the patience and the faith to let them unfold."

Similarly, Holly McClure (Crosswalk) affirms "the inspiring and miraculous message of hope and faith represented within the story. Dragonfly is the kind of movie that will stimulate discussion, leaving audiences asking questions and searching for their own answers."

But the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' critic calls Dragonfly "inane" and claims "Shadyac's clunky thriller offers some garbled spiritual bunkum about the 'next world' with overripe dialogue and a derivative script that grows increasingly ridiculous."

Phil Boatwright (The Movie Reporter) writes, "This supernatural romance/adventure, one supposedly to make us think about the hereafter, failed on every level. I understand Shadyac is a Christian … [but] I found his attempt here at guiding an audience to questioning spiritual matters less than effective. I wasn't moved. I wasn't interested. I just wanted the howling nonsense to be over."

A critic at Movieguide writes, "The movie's worldview problems and occult content make it totally unacceptable."

Michael Elliott (Movie Parables) says, "The journey to the final payoff is a tedious one and afterwards we recognize how manipulative the whole experience was." Elliott was troubled by the idea that Joe's dead wife is trying to communicate with him. "After all, she's dead. The Scriptures tell us plainly that the dead cannot speak."

Douglas Downs (Christian Spotlight) objects to this plot point as well: "Jesus declared in Luke 16 the biblical reality that there 'is between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'"

Some of these critics seem to object to the whole literary device of ghosts in storytelling. Like the magic in Harry Potter, the ghosts in these stories are not presented as an argument for how things really work, but as a way of talking about things we cannot know, to communicate a message of hope or, sometimes, horror. And while Christ certainly had good reason for exhorting us not to seek out contact with the dead, he did not forbid exploration of the idea in storytelling. Scripture itself offers such tales: Saul consults the spirit of Samuel, Jesus talks with Elijah and Moses. Both stories suggest these things are indeed possible, and that tales about such events are valuable.

Jesus himself used characters from beyond the grave in his own storytelling. Downs mentioned Luke 16:17-31 for a profound and even amusing story about tormented souls in Hell shout pleas for help to Abraham, who they can see walking around in Heaven. Sounding a little annoyed, Abraham shouts right back at them. Granted, there is some debate about whether Jesus was telling a parable or a literal happening. Sounds like a parable to me, but either way, Christ offered inhabitants of the afterlife as relevant characters in a good story.

What truly is disturbing about Dragonfly is the counsel that the nun offers Joe—and the audience. She is portrayed as the voice of wisdom and reason. And yet she encourages him to try to contact his wife's ghost, claiming that such a thing is possible if only Joe believes it is possible. "If we can create this world with what we imagine, then why not the next?" she argues. "Belief gets us there."

Lindy Beam (Focus on the Family) objects to this flimsy philosophy: "In an attempt to make a heartwarming statement about the power of faith, Dragonfly forgets that faith has to be a belief in what is true, not just belief for its own sake. This film gets credit for asking all the right questions, but deserves a swat for … failing to produce the right answers."

Douglas LeBlanc (Christianity Today) writes, "Joe's changed belief comes entirely through esoteric experiences. The film clearly rejects Enlightenment notions of reality, and thank God for that, but Dragonfly is too concerned with receiving messages from the other side. As a reflection on heaven, life on Earth, and how the two interact, it's no more nutritious than the popcorn."

Mainstream critics rejected the film almost unanimously. Lisa Schwarzbaum (Entertainment Weekly) groans, "I'd like to think that this silly humbuggery, this preposterous-for-no-good-reason supernatural tale, is throwaway comfort for a plague year. But I fear there's more junk like this about to come our way, whether we repent or not."

"There are deeply religious and spiritual people in this world who would argue that entering a church, synagogue, or temple doesn't mean you have to check your brain at the door," says Stephanie Zacharek (Salon). "The same should go for movie theatres."