BY CHRISTOPHER STAMM
GUEST MOVIE REVIEWER
The Healer (Available on most Streaming services)
Not rated, but suitable for the whole family.
Well, like so many others out there, due to the staffing shortages at my job, I had to go in and help out this weekend. So I wasn’t able to hit the cinema to see a new film to review for you fine folks this week.
But since I am, and always will be, a movie buff. I still had a great one on deck to suggest to you.
This week allow me to introduce you to a great little film that skimmed by briefly back in 2016: The Healer.
The Healer tells the story of Alec Bailey: a gambler, a womanizer, a man deeply in debt to the wrong sort of people, a man who is about to lose his business, and one who is adrift in his life. One day a man arrives in Alec’s life, a man who claims to be his long lost Great Uncle and makes him an offer. He will clear all of Alec’s debts on one condition: He must leave England for one year and live in the small town of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
After a not-so-gentle prodding from those aforementioned “wrong sort of people,” Alec takes the offer.
From there, the story unfolds. It would be easy to assume this would be just another fish-out-of-water kind of story, but there is more to it than that. There is some romance, some quirky characters that move in and out of Alec’s orbit, and just a little bit of magic – not too much mind you, but just enough to kindle our shared deep desire to believe there is still a little magic out there in this world.
Honestly, there are no big stars in this one. Sure, some familiar faces pop up, but that’s all. It really is just not that kind of movie, and it’s all the better for that lack of star power.
Four stars for this one – three because it’s a film with decency, in an age when decency seems to be hard to come by, and I added the fourth because all proceeds from this film went to [and still go to] The Paul Newman Foundation for children with cancer.
*By the time you read this, Dune will only be eight days from its release date. My ever-suffering wife longs for that day so I will just shut up about it already.