Julie Walking Home (2002)

People are voting emotionally.

Absolutely the worst movie.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This was a very interesting story, and I would have rated it very much higher had it not contained so much completely gratuitous profanity which really detracted from the movie. I find it especially grating on the nerves when people use the "F" word so much, when it only detracts from the dialogue and spoils the whole mood of the film. The beginning of the movie really grabs your attention. From there, the story is really interesting, and also quite unique. The quality of the acting is good for the most part. I would love to watch a version of this movie edited to be suitable as family entertainment, or rated G. It would be so much more enjoyable. There were also some sensual scenes which did not add anything at all to the story.

For me the ending was the point of the entire movie! That in fact, we are misled through the whole movie by the fact the her son is sick, and there's The Healer, so we all think that the healer is healing her son. And that's where we are wrong. He is a healer, and the person he was meant to heal was HER. Not the boy. Her son get's sick, yes, but why do we, the living, automatically think that the best thing is for him to survive? If you look at the mother in the beginning when she just finds out her son is ill and dying, you can see that she is in no condition to let go, especially because she has no source of comfort with her husband just having cheated on her. We even see her begging her son to not die. So she's willing to fight tooth and nail for her son to live, but also in a way for her soul and spirit to survive. That is where the healer comes in, and also maybe why he is able to spot her in that huge crowd as someone needing him. Not because of her son, but perhaps even unknownst to him, because healing her is going to require more from him than he's ever given before.Look also at the way she goes about her relationship with the healer. It's not your average affair. She's forgiven her husband, and is not doing it to spite him, and tells him about Alexai, she even admits to not understanding it. And on Alexai's side, if you look at the fact that whenever he heals someone it takes something out of him, this was his biggest healing mission ever. Because to do it, he had to give up his life as he knew it, without knowing the reason why, but just by following his instinct and what he feels he was called to do. He has sex for the first time, impregnates her, and then it completely makes sense that when her son's illness comes back, Alexai's healing powers are gone. Because that was never what he was meant to do. He healed that family, and specifically the mother, by healing her spirit enough for her to let go of her son. And in the end, she is able. She let's him go, and doesn't beg him to stay for her sake like she did before. It's brilliantly written, because it challenges what we think we know about dying, and living. And most of all it illustrates the immense power of spiritual healing.

The stuff matinees are made of. It's not the artsy fartsy stuff it seems to sound like. Luckily, I saw it in the afternoon.There may be something to say for faith healing, but this doesn't say it.

Life is complicated.There is no clear right or wrong.The deeds we hate on other people, may be done by us, when time comes. Humans don't always react in the most obvious ways.At many points in life, we have to make choices, where we gain something and we lose something. It is not usually obvious what choice is the best one.There is an ongoing tussle between heart and brain, the intellectual self and the emotional self, the worldly desire and larger than life desires... These are some of things I recall from my experience with the movie. It was indeed an experience. It was a very sensitive movie having complicated characters and their psychologies. It was one of those movies wherefrom anybody could take back anything that he/she relates to, more strongly. For example, one may think it was a movie about a woman's hypocrisies whereas others might that it was a movie on fighting till the last moment. Some might view it as justifying the supernatural. Its just how you view it.Although BASED ON A REAL LIFE STORY, and I never thought real life stories could be that surprising, its not the story that matters. Don't try to view the film based on the short story description. If you are into meaningful cinema which involves reflections from real life, a thought behind the movie, something that lets you ponder for quite sometime, this is the movie for you. And don't worry it will not be hard on you. Its softly told movie that will surely have an impact on you, positive or negative, who knows!