I wept throughout Taking Chance. This powerful film starring Kevin Bacon as a stoic Marine competed at the Sundance Film Festival last month. It premieres on HBO this Saturday night. Many of my students indicated they had never cried so much in one movie.  What made this requiem for an American soldier killed in Iraq so powerful?

Director Ross Katz collaborated with retired Lt. Colonel Michael Strobl on the simple story. It is about a Marine who chooses to escort a fallen soldier back to his hometown for a funeral. We never see even a photo of the dead soldier, 19 year-old Private First Class Chance Phelps. Taking Chance focuses instead upon the respect extended toward the casket by limo drivers, airline attendants and pilots. It is about people pausing to pay their respects to the departed. Taking Chance is an invitation to grieve.

Perhaps the timing of the film heightened its emotion. I saw Taking Chance with seventy-five students from our fifth Windrider Forum in Park City. We watched Taking Chance after witnessing the inauguration of President Barack Obama together. The day was already full of historic images and moments of great gravitas. As we reflected on this ‘hinge-point of history,’ director Ross Katz offered Taking Chance as an opportunity to ‘turn the page and reflect.’

America has taken almost no time to reflect since 9/11. We rushed into war with Iraq on misinformation and a hunger for revenge. The human cost of our war on terror has been hidden from us. No photographs have been allowed of soldiers’ caskets or funerals or even civilians fallen in Iraq. So while we have had many thoughts about the war on terror, we have not grieved.

In his book on The Prophetic Imagination, Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann noted that for ancient Israel, “Only grief permits newness.” We will not be able to move beyond 9/11 until we truly mourn for our loss and remember the dead who have fallen since. Taking Chance rises above politics to put a face on both those who died in Iraq and those who cleaned them up. It makes the preparation for burial into a sacred ritual, rooted in compassion.

Kevin Bacon portrays Lt. Colonel Mike Strobl with such aching restraint. His actions are reduced to a series of salutes. But he hurts and feels deeply. The old adage still proves true—when a character cries in a movie, you rarely shed a tear. But, if a character wants to cry, but cannot (think of Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember or Anthony Hopkins in Remains of the Day), then the audience often becomes the conduit for their catharsis. We suffer with and for them. I recommend you bring plenty of Kleenex into Taking Chance.