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(Release Info London schedule; April 17th, 2019, Cineplex Odeon Westmount Cinemas 755 Wonderland Road South, London, (519) 474-2152 Wed - Thu 4:30 7:20 10:20 pm)
"Breakthrough"
"Breakthrough" is based on the incredible true story of one mother’s unfaltering love in the face of impossible odds. When Joyce Smith’s (Chrissy Metz) adopted son John (Marcel Ruiz) falls through an icy Missouri lake, all hope seems lost. But as John lies lifeless, Joyce refuses to give up. Her steadfast belief inspires those around her to continue to pray for John’s recovery, even in the face of every case history and scientific prediction. The film is adapted for the screen from Joyce Smith’s own book 'The Impossible'. "Breakthrough" is an enthralling reminder that faith and love can create a mountain of hope, and sometimes even a miracle.
"Breakthrough" is based on a true story of a mother, Joyce Smith, who prayed her son back to life after he fell through a frozen lake and died and how this miracle impacted an entire community. John Smith was underneath the ice for 15 minutes, with no oxygen. When 'EMS' workers rescued him, he has no pulse. They rushed him to the emergency room and worked on him for another 45 minutes. The doctors can not bring him back to life. When Joyce comes into the emergency room and she sees her son laid out on the table, dead, instead of saying goodbye, she grabs his feet and says, ‘holy spirit please bring back my son right now'. Immediately, 'The EKG' machine begin going off. When you’re underwater for that amount of time with no oxygen, the chances of medically recovering are slim to none. And so, for John to have no brain damage, no eye damage, no lung damage, for everything to have been healed, it's medically unheard of. For these reasons it's a medical miracle.
The miracle of John coming back to life is only the beginning of the story and a catalyst for a series of other miracles that followed. Even before Joyce prays for John, it's miraculous that the firefighters and first responders are able to find him in the first place. 'Lake St. Louis' is massive, like finding a needle in a haystack. Fireman Tommy Shine (Mike Colter) hears this voice, telling him where he needs to go. He thinks it’s the chief talking to him, but later finds out it isn't the chief at all. The first doctor at the local hospital, Dr. Kent Sutterer (Sam Trammell), who happened to be the father of a friend of John’s, spent 45 minutes, an unusually long time, trying to revive him. Then Dr. Garrett (Dennis Haysbert), a world renown specialist, tells John’s mother, okay, Joyce, we're going to let 'God' do the rest. John’s recovering is a miracle. But the biggest miracle is the community itself. The thing that's so powerful is because of how the community rallied around John.
Joyce is a fierce mama bear. She's not afraid to speak her mind. She's her faith. Her not giving up hope and her fight for John is what really brought him through this. She’s been through a lot, but man she's strong. She's a strong woman. Joyce Smith is a force. She has faith in what she believes in and she loves her son wholeheartedly. Joyce believes that John is created for a purpose and refuses to accept what the doctors say. Her faith stayed strong and she's just like a light of love, pure love. Brian (Josh Lucas) is Joyce husband. He's a man who's more introverted, Joyce is the one who speaks up and takes the reins. Brian loves his son so much that he can't even be in the room with him when he's like this, and it's not out of lack of love. It's out of so much love that he cannot bear it. And so it's a difficult and delicate character to play because he's not this sort of forceful father. Tommy's character represents the doubters and the audience members that don't necessarily believe in miracles. Tommy is that person's point of view, so they get to experience this film through Tommy's eyes.
This is a modern-day resurrection story. 'God' is operating in miracles every day, but sometimes we're so focused in our day-to-day that we don't see them. This movie, and the story of John Smith and Joyce Smith and Pastor Jason (Topher Grace) will remind people that miracles are still happening. It will remind us of the power of prayer. It’s like a ripple in a lake when you throw a rock into it. The circle keeps getting wider. Those miracles just keep moving out. The humor in this film is wonderful. You will be laughing and crying throughout the entire movie. There's a fair amount of the audience that comes to a movie like this have some apprehension about believing the story and doubt that it really happened. It’s a great portrait of this town and this community. You meet all these different people and they all connected, and by a few degrees are all related to John in some way. They all come together to offer emotional and spiritual support. It’s just a really inspiring story about positivity in a town, and just believing in something and supporting each other.
The music is very important. The favorite moment of the movie is the church scene. The film opens with 'Uptown Funk' and we've 'Can’t Hold Me Down' because of actual songs from when the incident happened over 'Martin Luther King' weekend in 2015. We also have 'Oceans' which, when it comes to worship music, is one of the biggest worship songs probably in the history of worship music. We've Kirk Franklin who's a good buddy come in and do a remix for a gospel version that's performed on camera during the prayer vigil scene. Roxann Dawson isn't familiar with 'Oceans', but it's love at first listen. The film uses it as the midnight vigil that's sung outside the window on the night before John is going to go off all medication and all machines to see if he can survive. When the community gets together and really prays as one for John. We've got music that John is actually listening to, music that's on his playlist. The audience can put themselves into John's shoes. The actions he takes, his attitudes, the things that he goes through will be identifiable.
The film will be a catalyst for positive transformative change in the life of everyone who sees it. We live in a time so divisive, where everybody is on different sides of the political aisle, and have different points of view on so many things. That division can keep us from reminding ourselves, we're still brothers and sisters. We're still in this together. This movie can really stimulate and be a catalyst to get people back to praying together. Audiences take away from this movie, 'Hope', 'Faith', 'Love', 'Joy', 'Community'. And that all things really are possible. They may not always work out the way you want, and may not always fall in line, but when you're down you will see who really cares about you. Sometimes things don't work out the way we want, so that we understand we're more loved than we think. Anyone who watches it will believe there really is a plan for your life. Everybody will walk out of this movie feeling there's hope for us. In a world that feels chaotic, there's hope we can find common ground.
Love really is at the core of everything, if you really distill it down, and if we can come back to remembering this. Maybe this movie can help remind us in one small way. Audiences that are not necessarily faith-based come and see the movie and see a story that makes them have some questions about what's faith, and their own faith. Whether you're a believer or not you take away something from this movie, and this story more than anything makes you go there's something bigger out there. Whatever your beliefs are. It's a movie where you go home and lay in bed that night and have some interesting thoughts and questions, and maybe some challenging ones about yourself, about what you're going through in your own life. Audiences take away that love can truly move mountains. In that collective consciousness or prayer, in that quiet still time, those moments really make a difference in that you can change your life and you can change your mind. And when you do that and you believe in the power of positivity and prayer you would be amazed what could happen.
