Film review: The Long Goodbye

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Friday, June 28th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Megan Basham reviews a Netflix documentary on the life and death of Kara Tippetts. It’s an inspiring story of how to suffer well.

MEGAN BASHAM, REVIEWER: Kara Tippetts launched her blog, Mundane Faithfulness, in 2015. She had no idea then how the Lord would call on her to illustrate that title. 

It was taken from a question Martin Luther posed: “What will you do in the mundane days of faithfulness?” Kara had intended to cover topics like the daily grind of laundry, screaming kids, and getting dinner on the table. In other words, the everyday weariness and joy inherent to motherhood and wife-hood. 

But the blog’s focus took an almost immediate turn when, at age 36, the mother of four learned she had stage 4 breast cancer. Suddenly, she and her husband Jason were fighting for her life while trying to plant a church in a city they had just moved to. 

The heartbreaking, convicting, and ultimately joyful new documentary, The Long Goodbye, follows Kara and Jason as they fight for faithfulness in the midst of fear. Often in small, everyday, mundane ways.

CLIP: We are just constantly hit with more and more test results that are tough. I got in the car and I was like, ‘Alright kids, we’ve got three more places in my brain that have cancer. Let’s turn on some loud music and dance.

The film is filled with moments that show Scripture meeting the Tippetts in their daily lives. But it isn’t churchy. It doesn’t offer shallow Christianese bromides to the Tippetts’ pain. The faith Kara speaks of isn’t the stuff of sunrise-backed self-empowerment memes on Instagram. It is too hard and too real for that.

Take, for instance, a scene in which Jason begins describing how wonderful his wife is. Without realizing it, he begins talking about her as if she’s already gone.

CLIP: Kara before cancer was vivacious and amazing. No no, I answer it. I was helping you. She’s always been very beautiful to me. Um, I think just her fun personality. She always loved whoever was in front of her. Um, and people were just attracted to her. You’re talking about me in the past tense.

It’s understandable that Jason wants to prepare himself, perhaps subconsciously, to hold on to memories of his wife while she’s still with him. But the quiet alarm in Kara’s voice as she sits by his side, listening, is painful to hear.

But God would not be God if He wasn’t present in the painful things. And it’s clear that He is.  

We tend to think of faithful, godly people as bathed in an effortless sense of peace and calm. But that isn’t reality. And it isn’t reflected in the laments of Scripture. The Long Goodbye shows Biblical faith that cries out in hurt and confusion and then obediently fights to believe.

At times Kara admits she struggles to trust God’s promises in the face of test results that continually bring bad news. In the face of a terminal diagnosis. But watching her fight to believe even in her unbelief should encourage all of us who worry that our doubts and fear in trials mean we’re failing in the Christian life. 

CLIP: There was one night I was struggling really hard. I had just gotten a new diagnosis and I was laying in bed crying, crying through Phillipians 1:21 which is to live is Christ and to die is gain. And I said, “Lord, I don’t know that I believe you when you say to die is gain.” And it was this ever so clear answer of ‘Oh, I’ve got that taken care of. Kara, do you believe that to live is Christ?’ And in that moment I thought, oh, I don’t know. I still struggle with my understanding of heaven, but then I also know that God has that taken care of far better than I could ever.

Director Jay Lyons deserves tremendous credit for avoiding pitfalls that would do a disservice to the graciousness the Tippetts showed in letting cameras into their experience. Famous faces pop up, like when Joanna Gaines visits to decorate the Tippetts home for Christmas after she learns the family is a fan of her show. Or when Ellie Holcomb gives a mini living room concert. But the focus stays on the mundane, not the glamorous. These household names enter Kara’s world, not the other way around.  

Lyons also avoids over-dramatizing family interactions into something maudlin and false. There isn’t a moment when any of the Tippetts, even the youngest, feels as if they’re manufacturing emotion for the cameras. 

Kara was blessed with amazing fruitfulness despite diminishing physically. In the three years from diagnosis to death she wrote two books, spoke at numerous churches, and maintained her blog. More impressive, she continued to be kind and give herself to friends and family. And now, to all of us who are being encouraged by her example on Netflix. Though her life, by human estimation, was cut short, The Long Goodbye proves that it was still, as God promised her it would be, abundant.

For WORLD Radio, I’m Megan Basham.

(Photo/Netflix)

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