Does the Movie Matter (when it is screened to benefit a good cause)?

	John Leguizamo, as Frank Diaz, and David Castro as the son, Justin, in "Where God Left His Shoes."

On February 18, the film "Where God Left His Shoes" will be screened at The Crest theater on K Street to benefit Faith and Homeless Families Initiate, "a 2009 pilot program of the Ending Chronic Homelessness Initiative [which will match] ... homeless families with faith communities to mentor and help them obtain self-sufficiency and permanent housing."

Now, this new initiate of an initiate is very very likely to do good work for a good cause, efficiently and effectively rising to its ambitions, helping many homeless Sacramento families.

The little-seen arthouse film to be screened to raise money for the pilot initiative has gotten mostly good reviews [5 of 7 reviewers at rottentomatoes.com call it Fresh, whereas only two give it a thumbs-down Rotten rating.] And even in the bad reviews I've read, star John Leguizamo's performance is bountifully lauded. But I do think it troubling that the film -- about homelessness, raising funds for a homelessness cause -- is denounced by reviewers for presenting homelessness inauthentically.

The Village Voice review ends with these almost-indeciferable words, "the movie's vérité is diluted by a cozy, adult-contemporary empathy with those less fortunate that left me hearing 'Another Day in Paradise.'"

Variety says the movie "piles the pathos high as if to see how many hard-luck cliches its pugilist hero can fend off without succumbing to schmaltz."

Slant magazine ends its positive two-star review with this sentence: "It's cheap emotional manipulation for a topic that needs none: The Bicycle Thief for the Starbucks generation."

The New York Times' review of the movie begins with these words: "A fishy odor of unearned sanctimony clings to 'Where God Left His Shoes,' Salvatore Stabile’s queasy-making drama about a homeless New York family seeking shelter on a snowy Christmas Eve." And goes on to say, "The bureaucratic hurdles [the main character] encounters are real enough, but [his family], who are neither illegal immigrants nor drug abusers and who apparently have no relatives or friends on whom to lean, come across as much more helpless and victimized than they would actually be in such a situation."

Only Film-Forward demurs, writing that the protagonist's "plight is so realistic and the film’s reflection of our economic problems so devastating and direct, we can’t help but be deeply touched."

The movie did win a prestigeous award at Sundance, the 2007 Humanitas Prize. According to the Humanitas Prize website, the prize "honors stories that affirm the dignity of the human person, probe the meaning of life, and enlighten the use of human freedom." All that is all to the good, but perhaps veracity isn't an element that the prize-awarding committee values, even in a fictional film presented as being real or possible.

For us who live in Homeless World, getting news out there about the truth of our situation is of high value. Sentimental or phony or hyped depictions of homelessness can only add to the general misimpression of what life is like "out here."

I'm not meaning to criticize anyone, exactly. I mean, What can you do? The Community Services Planning Council and the folks of Ending Chronic Homelessness are wanting to raise funds and the film producers made "Where God Left His Shoes" available for that effort. The movie is well-regarded and seemingly a perfect fit to the ideals of anything called the Faith and Homeless Families Initiative.

It remains that presentations of the true nature of homeless life continue to be rare, overwhelmed by what is hyped, extreme and sentimentalized.