Houdini's Magic Movie Ticket

I watched this movie the other day. It's full of emotion and positive values, but there's also a great deal of tragedy. It's based on the song by the same name.

A woman is dying of a heart disease. She almost got a transplant, but that other heart turned out to have a disease of its own. There was a blurb on the bottom of the screen saying how this film was timeless. I wondered if she might still die today. Perhaps she could instead get a Jarvik artificial heart? Actually, no, Wikipedia says they're only temporary. But maybe in the future...

The woman's son crosses paths with a lawyer played by Rob Lowe, and the kid really wants to buy his mother some Christmas shoes to wear in Heaven. That was the main plot for me, although Lowe had a portion of the film dedicated to his marriage falling apart and slowly coming back together.

The part of the film that remains clearest in memory is how the mother was dying and there was no hope for a cure. That caused people to go in various directions. Her husband was distraught. Her son was single-minded about the shoes. The neighbors sang carols.

Honestly, I usually hate movies that preach failure. I like to watching inspiring, positive stories. But "The Christmas Shoes" was an exception, because it showed positive people coping with a negative event.

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