I saw an HBO movie via NetFlix a few weeks
ago called Taking Chance that grabbed
my heart in the first few minutes like no other film I’ve seen recently.  And it blew all those  guidelines I go on about to my students
for Drama 101 – action, plot, dramatic conflict blah blah blah –  right out of the water. This movie has no plot, no outward dramatic conflict (except for a guy at the airport demanding that
Kevin Bacon take his jacket off. ) The story is simple – Kevin Bacon plays Lt
Col. Michael R. Strobl, a Marine officer assigned to escort the body of Chance
Philips from Dover Air Force Base to his home in Wyoming. Along the way people
are deeply moved by his mission. And that’s basically it. It’s a situation that
could be ripe for God knows what kind of schlocky Hollywood stuff – but this
film and Kevin Bacon’s performance is so pure, so stripped to the bone, yet so wrenching that
you forget you’re watching a movie.  

It’s a true story and came from an essay that
Strobl wrote as a way to handle his emotions after the experience. I found the
essay at Taking
Chance – chicagotribune.com The amazing thing is that just about
everything in the film is exactly as he wrote it. Here’s how it begins: “Chance
Phelps was wearing his Saint Christopher medal when he was killed on Good
Friday. Eight days later, I handed the medallion to his mother. I didn't know
Chance before he died. Today, I miss him.”

Read the essay and see this film, and let us
know what you think.

And enjoy the Oscars tonight. (My own personal guilty pleasure: watching the whole thing starting with the 3:00 red carpet until the very end while eating copious amounts of junk food.)