from Alex Hall:

[I'm copying this review of HAPPY VALLEY from my blog.]

I strongly recommend seeing the film HAPPY VALLEY (and here is the official web site for it: http://www.happyvalleythemovie.com ). I saw it at the LDS film festival last night. It is playing again in the Grand Theater at the Scera Center in Orem (Utah), on Saturday night at 9:45 (why they don't have a better show time for this singularly great film I don't know).

It is a documentary that follows the lives of several drug addicts in Utah Valley (a.k.a. "Happy Valley") seeking recovery, and some families who have lost children to drug overdoses. It explores the harrowing reality of the prevalence of drug abuse in Utah Valley.

What transpires in the life of one family in the documentary, similarly to events reported in NEW YORK DOLL (which is also strongly recommended), is so breathtakingly perfect (and I will get your expectations up) that if it was a narrative film it would be dismissed by America's deeply cynical culture as contrived and unrealistic. As Susan Jeffers said, "We have been taught to believe that negative equals realistic and positive equals unrealistic." May this film give the world pause to reconsider that fallacy.

This film has sold out screenings everywhere it shows, and proceeds from the film go to aid addicts seeking rehabilitation, which can be very expensive for drug addiction. Those two marvelous points aside, the very potent spiritual substance communicated by the film is, in my opinion, a serious blow against evil.

I'm wondering about the environment the film seems to invite of broadcasted honesty. Before the film, two completely unaqcuainted men seated behind me audibly shared how sober they were, who in their family was hooked, and who died - now on that last, I wouldn't hesitate to share. Death by overdose is a public warning and anything less dishonors the death. But if these men felt safe with each other, should they broadcast their secrets audibly through a theatre? If the full disclosure of the interviewees in the film inspires, the whole audience would do this. Let's be wise. If a few "fall guys" wake the rest of us up, let's keep our secrets in helpful circles and not parade them. So, you fellows behind me broadcasting your addictions - as interesting as it makes you, if I would favorably compare you to any celebrity or artist, I'm not going to pay you great notice *until you're dead*.

I didn't ask the film maker afterward, but wanted to ask what his plans are for exposing the many other kinds of addiction that run rampantly through Utah Valley, some of which find love and acceptance easier to come by, and some of which don't.

One thing in the film disturbed me a lot. Prescription pill abuse is twice as common in Utah Valley as the national average, and is often deadlier than illegal drugs. And a Police Officer interviewed in the film reported a large group of teenagers he had been with, apparently all of them members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints (LDS or "Mormon"), who in discussing such use (abuse) among themselves, said "It's not against the Word of Wisdom. It's just a pill. It's nothing." (For clarification, the Word of Wisdom is an LDS doctrine regarding careful use of good foods and avoidance of bad foods and abusive substances.) Okay, kids. A careful (and recommended!) read of the Bible renders a picture of Jesus which baffled and enraged the powers of his day by using his head; by dodging rules where they could not apply, in favor of principle. We need rules, but the Lord broadly spoke of all situations where we need to use our heads when He stated in Doctrine and Covenants that "..it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward." Use your heads, kids. Do you need the Lord or anyone else to tell you this crap is ruining your body, your self-control, your spirituality, and your life, and that that is bad? You're smarter than that.

[I want to add in this posting that this reminds me of the also disturbing phenomenon that Eric Sameulsen observed in his film PECULIARITIES, of young Mormons going to get an insta-wedding in Vegas, messing around (to use language lightly), and then annulling the marriage - and believing they hadn't broken the Law of Chastity in any of this. After all, they were married. Okay, does intent and outcome have *zero* consideration in the judgment of our actions? Is our grasp of the Spirit of the Law for too much emphasis on the letter really so dead? These kids are staining themselves terribly.]

I like to think that awareness of addiction among Mormons is spreading. A few weeks ago at my chapel, they had a joint men's/women's meeting with someone from LDS Social Services about the topic, and what leaders are doing and can do about it. Only one thing disappointed me: in introduction he said that while he is sure many here know someone who needs this information, nobody here is in these kinds of situations. No, sir. First, you can't know that, and second it may be falsely flattering, and a disservice to truth and culture. A strongly repeated point in the documentary HAPPY VALLEY is the entrenched denial aspect of the valley's culture.

The safest guess is that every ward in every stake in the church has addicts, many of whom have not yet even recognized or confessed to themselves or anyone that they are out of control, and if or when sad circumstance arrives them at that point of total desperation, they may have no idea how to get help or that it is even available. Hopefully on the point that help is available they would be comforted, if our pretension that people in their situation are very rare doesn't open them to Satan's lie that their case is so rare, and so extreme, and so terrible, and that they are so far down the scale of hopeless that there is no hope. Please assume that wherever you go, there are people in the congregation who need help.

Alex Hall
http://alexandtia.com/Alex