Funny differences of perspective...(SPOI LER ALERT!)

The difficulty here is the Michael Tolkin didn't know enough about Christianty to understand how little he knew about Christianty. He cobbles together a few themes that a few disparate groups hold, but in the end portrays only a caricature of a Christian group. He comes about as close to portraying an actual Christian sect here as pro wrestling comes to protraying a sporting event. Tolkin was called on that shortcoming in the film at the time of its release. The most strident critic at the time was probably Michael Medved, who bitterly chastised Tolkin for dealing in stereotypes that would be wholly unacceptable if Toklin had been dealing with an ethnic group, nationality, etc. As I recall defended himself by saying that the religious theme was simply a cobbling together of ideas that he believed would film well and make a good story. The inspiration for the film was a story he read about in a newspaper and rather than attempt to become familiar with the beliefs of the particular group to which the homicidal mom belonged, he made up the religious ideas as he went along. I guess your sister-in-law is right in that it would utterly inaccurate to view this film as a piece of Christian propaganda because the fact is that it does not, and did not aspire to, present any coherent Christian theological viewpoint. (I know, for an atheist "coherent Christian theolgical viewpoint" is an oxymoron, but ultimately the religion presented in this film is Christian only if one applies a very wide-ranging defintion of the word "Christian.") A far more compelling (and intellectually honest) exercise would have been for Tolkin to invest the time and effort into learning more about the event on which the religious portion of the story is based and the group to which homicidal mom belonged.

Hear hear, xfile. Your analogy to "Happiness" is a good one.

Just mw two cents: I've been sifting through posts regarding the various perspectives of this movie and its message, and I'm a little surprised to find that no one sees the possibility that Mimi Roger's character hallucinates the final moments of the film.

I never just safely accepted that, but I left the film considering it a possibility. And it didn't feel like a bad directoral cliche ("it was all a dream!!!"....) for a couple of reasons: 1) the movie ends ambiguously enough to not hammer the point home, 2) people fallen from heatstroke and dehydration in the middle of the desert will often hallucinate, not just random images but sometimes entire conversations and situations, and I can't even imagine how the trauma of shooting your daughter's brains out onto the sand would facilitate such a mental state... and 3) given such acts by Susan Smith and Andrea Yates, I'd venture to say you don't even need heatstroke and dehydration to convince yourself of some pretty insane things.

Which is why I love this film, because discussing its many possible endings opens up many tangents of discussion. Some might scoff at comparisons I'd make of Mimi Roger's character with Susan Smith and Andrea Yates, since the latter two clearly had mental illness, while the movie did not allude to that possibility in the main character.

But that's where the discussion begins, because beyond being able to measure a calcuable imbalance of physical enzymes, mental illness is largely left up to observation and diagnosis. At what point do we stop saying "She's strong in her beliefs" and we start saying "She's friggin' nuts"?

Psychosis is simply a state where the "components of rational thought and perception are severely impaired." [Wikipedia.org] At what point does fanaticism in a belief or cause skirt the very faint line of psychosis? If enough fanatical adherence to religious zealotry convinces you of a reality that doesn't jibe with the rest of the world's reality, how do you function in society? If your reality clearly shows you that God wants you to kill your child, or remove yourself from society and deprive yourself of elements necessary for survival... what is society's duty to recognize that as functional and sane?

America has always had a really irritating stone in its shoe in this very problem: it grants its citizens religious liberty to practice their beliefs in any way they choose, so long as their practices adhere to the letter of the law, and even then the law grants some latitude for religion. But what are we to make of a person who has not yet broken any law... but is of the frame of mind that he or she will kill children the moment god asks her to, and is just waiting for the command? In other words: at a moment's whim and without any hesitation, she will place her god's Law above the Law of the People? The "potential" for lawlesness and criminality, protected humbly by the umbrella of the First Amendment.

It's what makes it so interesting. Anyway, these are just a FEW questions that are conjured up, out of hundreds. I love films that can do that.