'Conversations With God'

Author Neale Donald Walsch claims to have literally taken dictation from God in answer to some of his own questions, and the New Age–y books that resulted have gone on to huge success. But how do you make a movie out of one guy having a dialogue in his head? Stephen Simon's movie opts to tell the backstory of Walsch, played here by Henry Czerny under an astonishing variety of fake beards. Injured in a car crash, fired from his job, evicted, unemployable due to age and ailments, he does a stint in a homeless camp before a series of divine coincidences starts propelling him upward again. It's an agreeable enough tale right up until God butts in and starts talking; even if you can swallow the premise, it isn't particularly cinematic to watch a guy endlessly scribbling on legal pads. The rest of the film serves as an infomercial for the book, with every other character tediously going on and on about how amazing it is.