Genre: Drama/Supernatural/Horror
Director: Frank Darabont
Writer: Chad Taylor
Based on the novel by Stephen King
Cast: Kyle Chandler, Tom Hanks, Mike Faist, Maxwell Jenkins, Madison Iseman, Olivia Rodrigo, Rachel Keller, Laura San Giacomo, Belmont Camelli, David Morse, Tracy Letts, Aidan Quinn
Plot: “So. Tell me about this Pastor Jacobs,” a voice (Tracy Letts) asks.
Jamie Morton (Kyle Chandler) contemplates his answer.
“From the beginning?”
Harlow, Maine | Summer 1967
14-year-old Jamie Morton (Maxwell Jenkins) plays football in the yard with his brother Conrad (Belmont Cameli), who is a year older than him and who everyone refers to as Con. Jamie isn’t as into sports as Con, the back-up quarterback for the football team. Their older sister Claire (calls out to them that it almost time for church. Jamie asks why they have to go to church and Con says it makes their parents happy. Give it a few years and they’ll never have to go to church again. He then whispers that at least they’ll get to see Mrs. Jacobs in a dress.
At Harlow United Methodist Church, we are introduced to the young pastor Charlie Jacobs (Mike Faist). He oozes charisma and has the entire congregation in the palm of his hand, including all the teen girls who have a crush on him. A similar thing could be said of his wife Patsy (Madison Iseman), who radiates every time she walks in a room. Jamie’s parents are more skeptical than some about the young couple but at least their kids are enthusiastic about church every week.
On Wednesdays, the neighborhood children attend a Ministry Youth Fellowship meeting hosted by Pastor Jacobs. He shows a keen interest in science and specifically electricity, often tying them into his Bible lessons. Jamie becomes unexpectedly nervous this week when Charlie handpicks Jamie to show the ropes to the new girl, Astrid Soderbergh (Olivia Rodrigo). She is in Con’s grade and her family just recently switched churches. They get along instantly and Jamie’s nerves quickly wash away. However, their bonding is interrupted by Charlie’s young son Morie. At four-years-old, Morie is very impressionable and looks up to the older kids in Youth Group and they all treat him like a younger brother.
On the Fourth of July, Con is going to a party with some of his teammates. Jamie asks if he can tag along, which annoys Con but he agrees. It becomes clear why Jamie wanted to attend as Astrid also happens to be there. She smiles upon seeing Jamie and they pick up where they left off. Jamie watches as his brother and friends smoke cigarettes and Astrid asks if he smokes. Jamie scoffs and says that if they taste like they smell, he imagines cigarettes are awful. They both laugh. As the night gets older, Jamie and Astrid grow more flirtatious and eventually kiss. They’re interrupted once again, this time by a commotion. There has been an incident with the fireworks and it seems one of them has hit Con in the throat.
As the days go by, Con is unable to speak and none of the remedies seem to be working. This weighs heavily on his family, including Jamie. On Wednesday, he vents about this to Pastor Jacobs when Charlie inquires about Con’s absence. Upon hearing about this issue, Charlie instructs Jamie to bring Con to him as he might have something that can help.
The following night, Claire drives Con and Jamie the Pastor’s home. She says she’ll wait in the car. They are both a bit dumbstruck when Patsy Jacobs answers, dressed in her nightwear. Charlie intercepts and says he’s been expecting them. He takes the two boys back to his garage where they see his various tools and prototype inventions. He pulls out a device that looks like a small belt and is connected to a low-voltage electric current. Jamie nervously asks if Con has ever tested this before and he assures them several times. They put the belt around Con’s neck and turn on the electricity. It only lasts a few seconds and Con is breathing heavily afterwards. Jamie and Charlie look at him in nervous anticipation before they finally hear “can you hear me?”. Jamie runs over and happily hugs his brother.
A few weeks later, Jamie is woken up by a knock on his door. It is Claire, in tears. She sits on the side of his bed and tells him some sad news: Patsy and Morie Jacobs were killed in a car accident. Jamie is in shock and says he wants to go visit Pastor Jacobs but Claire says they should give him time to grieve. Jacobs takes a brief sabbatical before returning to the church a few weeks after the death of his wife and son. The congregation sits in nervous sympathy as Pastor Jacobs struggles to speak at first. He thanks them for their hospitality in this time of need. He then tells three stories he read in the newspaper archives about churches being destroyed by tornadoes and children drowning in public pools. He wonders what those people, those poor victims, did to deserve a fate such as that. He then begins openly questioning the existence of a God. Some people begin walking out and others politely ask him to stop. He wraps up by saying his little boy wanted to go to Disneyland much more than he wanted to go Heaven. Religion is like an insurance scam — you’re paying money into your whole life, only to get to the end to find the money isn’t there. He walks out.
Jamie runs out of the church to try and talk to Charlie before he leaves. The pastor says he must be going but thanks Jamie for always being an eager listener. Jamie thanks him for helping his brother and for being a caring mentor.
Days later, a car pulls up to the Morton household and begins honking. Jamie looks out to see that it is his girlfriend Astrid, having just got her driver’s license. He joins her and they go for a joyride. He complains about what happened to Pastor Jacobs and she agrees that it was a raw deal. He even admits that Charlie’s words have him now questioning his faith. An oncoming thunderstorm forces them to stop at a park in outer Castle County. It is at that park, in that car that Jamie loses his virginity. Afterwards, Astrid pulls out a pack of cigarettes and gives Jamie a look. He laughs, says he doesn’t mind and then says he’d take one actually. The camera pulls out as smoke billows out the windows of her sedan and lightning strikes in the far distance.
“That was the last I’d heard from Pastor Jacobs. At least for a while.”
Tulsa, Oklahoma | Fall 1991
Jamie (Kyle Chandler), now in his mid-40s, has made a career as a blues rock guitarist. His band Chrome Roses has found middling success over the years, enough to make a decent living for Jamie. But as the band gets ready to play at the Tulsa County Fairgrounds, Jamie is nowhere to be seen. His bandmates vent about him no-showing another gig. Meanwhile, Jamie is laying in his hotel bed. He is strung out on heroin and so the phone continues to ring in the background. He gets a knock on his door and it is the hotel manager. She says she’s been asked to pass along a message: he has been fired from the band. He thanks her and then heads back to bed.
The next morning, Jamie feels a bit defeated. He considers calling one of his old bandmates but decides against it. Instead, he wanders out to the county fair where the band played the night before. He silently walks past the various booths and looks on at all of the kids and families and imagines what his life could have been. Given the path he has chosen, he’s now there by himself to search for drugs. And then something catches his eye: a large crowd has gathered for a show called “Portraits in Lightning”. On stage is someone by the name of Danny Jacobs (Tom Hanks), who Jamie immediately recognizes as his former pastor (although strangely under a different name). The on-stage showmanship is undeniable. Jamie watches as Jacobs calls for a volunteer and picks a homely 22-year-old girl named Cathy Morse. Cathy sits down in something that looks like an electric chair, prompting Cathy’s father protests but Jacobs insists that this is entirely safe. He then pulls a lever that sets off a series of electrical currents around the stage before a bright flash. Jacobs reveals a sizable blue plate on which Cathy’s likeness has been burned onto, leaving the crowd in awe as it looks like Cathy but she is now beautiful with long blonde hair and diamond earrings. He hands Cathy the plate and then says he will be here for the rest of the fair and you too can get your lightning portrait, for a small fee. And then, as he looks out into the crowd, he spots Jamie. Just as Jamie recognized him immediately, the same is true for the reverse. And in that instant, an intense shiver is sent down Jamie’s spine and he passes out.
Jamie wakes up and finds Danny Jacobs sitting beside him, who asks how Jamie is feeling upon seeing him awake. Jamie asks where he is and Jacobs explains that he took him to his trailer when Jamie passed out. He says this reunion was less than ideal but he jumped in when he saw Jamie go down. They catch up on each other’s lives in the time since they’d seen one another. Jacobs said he found it hard to return to the church after the death of his wife and son so he decided to move around the country and closer pursue his hobbies. Jamie jokes about how Jacobs always loved his inventions and experiments. He then asks about the name and Jacobs says Daniel is his middle name - Charles Daniel Jacobs. So just a little change of pace. It is Jamie’s turn and he talks honestly about it all: the music career, the drug addiction, the recent troubles. Jacobs asks about Jamie’s family. He says that Con is a marine life researcher at a university in Hawaii, which he know sounds surprising given that Con was a jock when Jacobs knew him. Claire…he says it is still hard to talk about her. She got married and worked as a schoolteacher in Castle Rock. She then got divorced and her husband didn’t take that too well. One day — November 11th, 1979, a Friday — he walked into the school with a gun and shot Claire three times. Right in front of her students. Jacobs is very sorry to hear this and then begins to inquire more about Jamie’s heroin addiction. He asks if he would be willing to try one of his experiments. Jamie says he has literally nothing to lose.
Jamie sits down nervously in one of Jacobs’s machines. He asks is Con was his first patient in this regard. Jacobs confirms that he was but he has treated many people since, in a variety of ways. He says this will only take a small voltage of electricity and should do the trick. Jamie flashes back to how scared he was when his brother was in this position all those years ago. However, it does happen rather quickly and Jamie feels almost nothing at all. Jacobs instructs Jamie to come back to him in a few days but his addiction should now be cured. Jamie asks if Jacobs wants any money for this and Jacobs shakes his head, saying Jamie was one of his favorite pupils. They shake hands and go their separate ways.
A few days pass. Jamie sits in his hotel room with a sweat on his brow. On a table in front him are a handful of drugs he has recently bought. As he contemplates which to take, he hears someone behind him say his name. He turns around and is shaken to his core when he finds that it is his sister Claire. She looks 35, the age she was when she died, and in her blouse are three blood-stained bullet holes. “Help me, Jamie,” she says but he can’t find himself able to speak. She begins to cry and begs for his help. He begins to tremble himself and runs over to hold her hand, although he jerks back when he finds it to be ice cold. He begins to repeatedly say her name until he wakes up in hospital bed in a cold sweat. He is relieved to find it was all a dream.
As he goes about his day, Jamie finds that he has none of the urges that he once did. He is feeling no withdrawals and feels as clean as he has in years. He returns to the fairgrounds to visit Jacobs’s trailer. However, when he gets there, he discovers that Jacobs has left town. He asks one of the nearby workers if they’ve seen him and the worker tells him that rumor has it that there was some kind of altercation with a patron that led to Jacobs leaving. Jamie thanks the worker and then leaves town. He’s ready to start anew.
“Did you ever find more about that ‘altercation’?”
“I did. But I also found so much more.”
Sacramento, California | Spring 2007
Jamie has now spent the last ten years as a guitarist for a re-formed line-up of rock group Steve Miller Band, who he had listened to growing up. Given that the group tours regularly, it has led to a nice steady living for Jamie. He has been sober for fifteen years; sixteen come the Fall.
After a recording session, Jamie chats with their audio engineer Hugh Yates (David Morse). Jamie complains a bit about a small ringing in his ear, as if his hearing is starting to go out. Hugh says that he had that problem once and was diagnosed with Ménière’s Disease. Jamie asks how Hugh is coping and he says that he was actually healed of it about five years back. He’d seen an advertisement about a traveling revival tent led by a faith healer named Charles Daniel Jacobs. Jamie drops his head as Hugh continues his story. Jacobs used electrotherapy to cure the disease. Jamie decides not to tell about his personal history with Jacobs just yet. He asks if Hugh would recommend Jamie to go to this Jacobs. Hugh says it might be better to wait and see if the hearing loss worsens. Jamie asks why and Hugh says he has experienced some unusual visions — visions he never had before he met Jacobs. Jamie looks up to the recording booth window and sees a reflection of Claire and quickly looks away. Hugh says he can’t pinpoint if the electrotherapy is the exact reason but he has his suspicions.
Jamie goes home but cannot stop thinking about what Hugh said. He goes to his computer and his keyboard skills are still developing but he begins researching his former pastor. Jacobs does indeed now go by his full name and advertises himself as a faith healer, harnessing the power of God through lightning to help those in need. This makes Jamie chuckle but he continues searching. He finds an old newspaper article about the altercation at the Tulsa County Fair in 1991. The film transitions into a flashback as Jamie reads it. Apparently after Jacobs’s demonstration, Cathy Morse went to a nearby jewelry store and repeatedly banged her head into a glass case until it broke open. She stole the diamond earrings inside and then tried to leave the store but was apprehended. Her father angrily returned to the fair and viscously beat Jacobs, blaming him for what happened to his daughter.
Back in 2007, Jamie searches Cathy’s name and finds that she committed suicide in 1999. This leads him down a rabbit hole of looking into other people “cured” by Jacobs and finds that quite a few of them have died young. While Jamie is obviously alive, we have a brief flashback of him waking up one day from the pain caused by him repeatedly stabbing his arm with an ink pen while sleepwalking, as if he was trying to inject heroin. And then, of course, there’s the whole Claire thing. Jamie is shaking in anger as he reads through these stories and finally he decides to write down Jacobs’s cell phone number. He first calls Hugh and says he plans on confronting Jacobs about the effects of his experiments. Hugh declines helping as he has hadn’t visions in quite a while and doesn’t want to trigger them.
Jamie nervously paces the room before calling Jacobs. The old pastor answers and immediately can tell it is Jamie from the voice. Before Jamie can even say why he is calling, Jacobs said it’s funny that he reached out as he was about to call Jamie himself. Jamie hesitates with revealing his true intentions now. Jacobs says he had recently heard from an old “friend” of Jamie’s: Astrid Soderbergh. She had recently been diagnosed with incurable colon cancer and contacted Jacobs, having remembered what he did for Jamie’s brother back in the 60s. Jamie is very emotionally conflicted hearing this. Jacobs then reveals why he planned to call: Astrid’s procedure requires an extra level than he is used to and so he needs someone who act as his assistant. Jamie was the natural choice since the electricity has run through him. Plus he was Jacobs’s favorite pupil. While Jamie initially called to confront Jacobs, he finds himself unable to say no to this offer. He hadn’t thought about Astrid in years but she never left his mind.
Jamie returns to his home state of Maine and heads to Astrid’s country home, where Jacobs is staying with her. He greets Jamie at the door and he looks much older than the last time he’d seen him. But maybe that was just the drugs speaking. Jacobs hugs Jamie and says he is happy to see him looking so healthy. Jamie says he’s been meaning to tell him for fifteen years that he has never used a mind-altering substance since that day in Tulsa. Jacobs nods his head and says he knew deep down that was the case. Jacobs guides Jamie in and Jamie is horrified at what he sees. Astrid (Laura San Giacomo) is in her bed, seemingly sleeping. She looks very frail, almost nothing like those summers of the late 60s. But Jamie knows he has changed as well. He goes to hold her hand but finds that it is ice cold, sending him into an intense flashback to the vision he had of Claire and feeling her hand. He immediately checks and finds that Astrid is not breathing. He whips a look at Jacobs and asks what is going on here. Jacobs requests Jamie not be mad at him; he did not mean to intentionally mislead him. Jamie is irate, saying he said he was coming to help heal Astrid. It is clear that he is too late.
Jacobs takes Jamie to the parlor so they can talk. He first apologizes but says he knows Jamie wouldn’t have come if he had revealed his true intentions. Jacobs assures his pupil that Astrid lived a peaceful life and she really did reach out to him but it was too late. And now an opportunity has presented itself, an opportunity that Jacobs has been looking for over decades. Jamie interrupts him to ask if he knows about all of the negative after effects his former patients have experienced. Jacobs knows of a few but says all of his patients knew there was a chance of after effects. Jamie asks what Jacobs’s master plan is and Charles holds Jamie’s hand. He says that tonight they are going to revive Astrid Soderbergh. Jamie shakes his head and says he can’t be a part of this. Jacobs won’t let go of his hand and reminds his pupil of what he said about being 15 years sober, thus he owes him some assistance. Jacobs is tearing up as he says he wants to know what happened to his love and to his boy. He just wants to know. Doesn’t Jamie wonder about Claire? Jamie can see the sincerity in Jacobs’s cause, even if he disagrees with the method.
The lightning storm intensifies outside and Jacobs says they must act quickly. He hooks Astrid’s corpse up to his machine and waits until the right lightning strike. When it hits, he pulls the lever and Astrid’s body begins to convulse. Her eyelids jolt open but her eyes are rolled in the back of her head. Jacobs tries to gently talk to her, saying her name, and she slowly turns her head towards him. A voice begins to speak but it sounds unnatural. She calls herself Mother and warns against humans meddling with the outer realm. Jamie is stunned to silence. Jacobs, still pushing, asks what happened to his family. Are they in an afterlife? Mother begins to laugh as the insides of her mouth begin to move strangely, as if hands are reaching out from them. Her cheeks begins to expand as a pale face starts to push out from Astrid’s mouth. It is the face of Patsy Jacobs. Charles is in tears and can’t find himself able to talk. Patsy starts to talk, sounding as she did way back then but her face is wretched. She says it is awful. She says the last forty years have been spent in a place called the Null, traveling endlessly as slaves to large ant-like creatures. They are being taken to be fed to a deity called Mother. It is truly worse than anyone could have ever imagined. Charles asks about Morie and Patsy says that he’s been with her the whole time. It tears her apart every waking minute seeing their son - seemingly stuck forever at 4-years-old — go through this.
Patsy then looks scared as she retreats back into Astrid’s throat. Mother begins speaking again and asks Jacobs if he got what he was looking for. Astrid’s possessed body then lunges towards Jacobs for interfering with her world. Jamie, in a moment of panic, breaks out his trance to find Astrid’s gun nearby and shoot Astrid multiple times. She falls to the ground, Mother seemingly been extracted from her. He then goes to check on Jacobs and finds that the episode caused him to have a stroke, which appears to be fatal. Jamie places the gun in Jacobs’s hand to make it appear like he is the one that shot Astrid. In a daze, he wanders out of the home.
“And that is how I ended up here.”
In 2014, Jamie is sitting across from his therapist, Dr. Edmonds (Tracy Letts). Jamie asks candidly if he thinks what he saw that day was a vision or the real thing. Dr. Edmonds says he always been agnostic so he has always chosen to believe there is some degree of truth and falsehood in religious experiences across time. He asks what Jamie thinks. Jamie says he knows what he saw. And he knows people will think he is crazy. But then there are Jacobs’s various patients. Had they seen what he saw? Is that what led them to their untimely ends? How could you live life knowing what was next? And it wasn’t just Cathy Morse. In 2004, a man cured of paralysis hung himself in his children’s bedroom. In 2009, Hugh Yates intentionally drove his car into oncoming traffic.
As he talks, we see Jamie leave the office and head to a mental institution housed in the same office complex. All of the staff greet him as he seems to be a regular. He visits a room labeled “Conrad Morton”. Inside is his brother Con (Aidan Quinn), now in his mid-60s. He is unable to form full sentences, just as was the case years before. Jamie tells Dr. Edmonds that in 2012, Con killed his longtime partner and attempted to kill himself. It failed and Con ended up here. Jamie wonders why he, of all people, was spared but then says he guess talking to Con is his purpose. I guess we’ll never really know. Jamie tells Con he loves him and looks to his left to find Claire looking on, smiling softly.
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