Conversations With God

Writer Eric DelaBarre and director Stephen Simon take the title of their film from Neale Donald Walsch’s bestselling books, but the substance of the film isn’t the books so much as the life that Walsch led up to the time he wrote them. As Walsch, Henry Czerny takes the character from his near-fatal injury in a 1990 car crash through unemployment, homelessness, destitution, and a gradual rebuilding of his life until he begins (as he says) taking dictation from the Almighty and offering spiritual self-help sessions. The film is professionally mounted, smoothly constructed and carried with ease by Czerny’s assured performance. Simon and DelaBarre even consider the idea that Walsch may be dealing in comforting fiction, then dismiss it—they seem to say that the comfort, not the fiction, is the point.