The acclaimed new film, TÁR, is the sort of movie I love writing about from a theological perspective. Directed by Todd Field and starring Cate Blanchett in a career-peak performance, TÁR doesn’t shy away from daunting questions and topics: cancel culture, gender politics, class tensions, technology, art, the nature of humanity, and more. Yet on none of these topics is the film heavy-handed or particularly dogmatic. Field leaves it to the audience to decipher the film’s meaning—which for some might be frustrating, but for me is a thrill.

I’m rarely interested in films where “the point” is unmissable and the “message” abundantly clear. Those films usually feel more like propaganda or visual blog posts than they do art. They make the audience feel like consumers being sold something rather than participants invited to engage. The movies I love are more interested in observing the complexity of life, in all of its beauty (and ugliness), and inviting the audience to actively participate in the project of sense-making. These sorts of films respect and empower viewers to bring their respectives lenses to the table.

My particular lens is theological, informed by my Christian faith. When I review films like TÁR, then, I’m looking for how the film engages questions of spiritual significance and what the film’s observations reveal about the spiritual longings and confusion of our contemporary world. My hope is that this type of criticism amounts to a form of “cultural apologetics,” bringing Christian ideas and frameworks into fruitful conversation with secular questions and concerns. As you watch films like TÁR, or any of the many thoughtful new movies being released over the holidays, consider taking this approach too. Sometimes the films and shows that feel furthest away from Christianity are the ones most ripe for fruitful theological engagement.