A wonderful story about people I could care about

Rating: 8/10 (28 April 2015)

My husband and I both enjoyed this movie about a little boy named Pepper who desperately wants to do something to help his father come home safely from WWII. He has a fascination with magic. Can magic bring his father home? He's been told by a kind pastor that faith the size of a tiny mustard seed is strong enough to move a mountain. How can he have that kind of faith and use it to bring his father home?
One can almost see the boy's struggle with understanding the difference between the two--magic and faith. The pastor's hands-on way to help him build his faith, a list of the corporal acts of mercy, gives him a way to start where he is with his fascination with magic and build his spiritual muscles, so to speak, to become a more compassionate and faith-filled child.
Like all movies, this one has a few flaws. I felt that the older brother's change of heart at one point was too abrupt and that Pepper's grunting attempts to harness the power of his mind and of his faith were a little overplayed. Nevertheless, the emotional impact of the film was intense, I cared what happened to the people in the story, and important, timely issues were treated without becoming preachy. Racial prejudice, bullying, and the impact of war on the participants and their families in particular, and all people in general--all of these issues were woven together to create an uplifting story that inspires the viewer to tend a personal mustard seed of faith and go out to move a mountain.