Much like "Loose Change" or any other conspiracy film, this piece is not without its die-hard supporters who claim that it's changed their life and that everyone who disagrees is a fool too closed-minded to see their One True Way. But if you're a fan of science or critical thinking (or thinking in general), this film will honestly waste 90 minutes of your life. It presents self-help book authors who think they've got a mandate to tell other people how to live their lives. It presents two people who claim to be scientists talking about this great, monumental discovery of the "Law" of Attraction, but have yet to win a Nobel Prize for such Earth-shattering work (or be taken seriously by the scientific community). It shamelessly cherry-picks quotes from a handful of famous people of the past and claims that they were all on board with this wonderful Secret (which explains why they got so rich and powerful). Indeed this makes you wonder why their "experts" like John Gray haven't yet joined the Pantheon of world's greatest people.
What is the Secret, you ask? Here it is in a nutshell: The movie first suckers the simple-minded into believing it has some validity by first presenting the revolutionary concept that boils down to "a positive outlook on life makes you more pleasant and makes you experience your day better". Wow, truly ground-breaking, thanks! But much like any pseudo-science, it takes a common knowledge that people agree with and then springboards off it to draw ridiculous conclusions, namely that your mind is a beacon that continually communicates with the universe and because the universe truly cares about you, it grants you everything you ever dream about: Wealth, power, fame. Seriously. This is their law of attraction: What you think about.... happens. And oh yeah, every bit of negativity in your life is due to your negative thoughts and you could've avoided this negativity by simply wishing a little harder and being more positive.
And that's where the most offensive part of the film comes in because while such a point of view may not be too offensive for middle-class well-fed Americans and their worst problems (bills, heckling, lack of love), it's an incredible insult to anyone who has ever been through real suffering and negativity: The Jews of the Holocaust, the office workers of the World Trade Center, the starving kids in Africa, anyone who ever got killed in an earthquake, landslide, hurricane, tornado, etc. Suddenly the "avoid bad things by thinking positively" starts seeming ridiculous and yet it's a problem that needs to be addressed by these "experts" before pushing an infantile concept that claims to solve every human problem in the universe for more book/CD/DVD sales.
How do these people propose to solve such problems and prove their point? They treat their audience like children by showing examples of Aladdin with a Genie that says "Your wish is my command" to explain just how the universe actually functions. They paint a scenario where a boy wants a bicycle really badly and instead of asking his parents for it, saving his change, or opening up a lemonade stand, he merely cuts out a magazine clipping of the bike, concentrates really hard, wishes and wishes, and lo and behold, an old man (who I hope is a relative) one day appears at his door with a brand-new bike. Really!
Then they go on to show a guy who got paralyzed in an accident but due to some kind of unseen luck, makes a recovery and walks again. He claims this happened because he was always positive and wished that he could walk again. So the Secret really works! Not quite, especially when you consider the fact that most people who become paralyzed never make any recovery (Christopher Reeve apparently was positive enough to achieve fame and fortune but didn't wish hard enough to walk again after his accident). Again and again, the film insults victims of real misfortune by reducing the world's misery to trivial problems that can all be solved in the mind. It appeals to folks with no real troubles of their own as a cheap-fix self-help solution while I can't imagine what it must be like for victims of ACTUAL misfortune to sit there and be told that "it's all in your mind".
The movie is disgusting, ridiculous, ignorant, and self-centered. It gives the foolish an easy answer but glazes over a problem so complex as human misery with a childish fairy tale. I recommend this movie if you liked "Loose Change". All others, you have been warned.
Oh yeah, and the cinematography was cheesy.
What is the Secret, you ask? Here it is in a nutshell: The movie first suckers the simple-minded into believing it has some validity by first presenting the revolutionary concept that boils down to "a positive outlook on life makes you more pleasant and makes you experience your day better". Wow, truly ground-breaking, thanks! But much like any pseudo-science, it takes a common knowledge that people agree with and then springboards off it to draw ridiculous conclusions, namely that your mind is a beacon that continually communicates with the universe and because the universe truly cares about you, it grants you everything you ever dream about: Wealth, power, fame. Seriously. This is their law of attraction: What you think about.... happens. And oh yeah, every bit of negativity in your life is due to your negative thoughts and you could've avoided this negativity by simply wishing a little harder and being more positive.
And that's where the most offensive part of the film comes in because while such a point of view may not be too offensive for middle-class well-fed Americans and their worst problems (bills, heckling, lack of love), it's an incredible insult to anyone who has ever been through real suffering and negativity: The Jews of the Holocaust, the office workers of the World Trade Center, the starving kids in Africa, anyone who ever got killed in an earthquake, landslide, hurricane, tornado, etc. Suddenly the "avoid bad things by thinking positively" starts seeming ridiculous and yet it's a problem that needs to be addressed by these "experts" before pushing an infantile concept that claims to solve every human problem in the universe for more book/CD/DVD sales.
How do these people propose to solve such problems and prove their point? They treat their audience like children by showing examples of Aladdin with a Genie that says "Your wish is my command" to explain just how the universe actually functions. They paint a scenario where a boy wants a bicycle really badly and instead of asking his parents for it, saving his change, or opening up a lemonade stand, he merely cuts out a magazine clipping of the bike, concentrates really hard, wishes and wishes, and lo and behold, an old man (who I hope is a relative) one day appears at his door with a brand-new bike. Really!
Then they go on to show a guy who got paralyzed in an accident but due to some kind of unseen luck, makes a recovery and walks again. He claims this happened because he was always positive and wished that he could walk again. So the Secret really works! Not quite, especially when you consider the fact that most people who become paralyzed never make any recovery (Christopher Reeve apparently was positive enough to achieve fame and fortune but didn't wish hard enough to walk again after his accident). Again and again, the film insults victims of real misfortune by reducing the world's misery to trivial problems that can all be solved in the mind. It appeals to folks with no real troubles of their own as a cheap-fix self-help solution while I can't imagine what it must be like for victims of ACTUAL misfortune to sit there and be told that "it's all in your mind".
The movie is disgusting, ridiculous, ignorant, and self-centered. It gives the foolish an easy answer but glazes over a problem so complex as human misery with a childish fairy tale. I recommend this movie if you liked "Loose Change". All others, you have been warned.
Oh yeah, and the cinematography was cheesy.