A lesser known film, Walking Across Egypt captured my heart the first time I saw it and has long been one of my favorites. “Feature Films for Families” has released an edited version of the film which I strongly recommended viewing, as the original contains strong language.

Mattie’s life changes the day she falls through the bottom of her wicker-seated rocking chair. Fortunately for her, the dog catcher arrives to take care of a stray mutt she’d reported, and manages to extricate the elderly woman. As Mattie (Ellen Burstyn) later recounts the story to her grown son, Robert (Judge Reinhold), he suggests keeping the dog for company. “Why, Robert,” she replies, “I got no more business keeping a dog than I got walking across Egypt.” By the end of the film, however, she gets a good deal more than a dog.

When lonely Mattie eagerly fosters the dog catcher’s acquaintance, she learns he has a young nephew, Wesley (Jonathan Taylor Thomas), in the local young men’s penitentiary. After hearing a convicting sermon about ‘loving the least of these,’ Mattie determines to reach out to the parentless boy by bringing him some food. Though wary at first, Wesley soon warms to the kind woman, and after running away from the correctional center, he convinces her to let him stay at her house (saying that he’s ‘on leave for good behavior’). What follows is an incredibly freeing time for two souls starved for human love and companionship.

If you are able to locate the edited version, there are no obvious content issues. Younger viewers, however, might find the scenes in the penitentiary disturbing: guards (whose punishment for everything is ‘solitary confinement’) rough handle their wards frequently; fights are a daily occurrence and Wesley is hounded by a brutal, older inmate. The unedited film contains some frequent strong instances of language, as well as mild innuendo. From a Christian perspective, the film has many redeeming qualities. Mattie’s adventure begins by a desire to please Christ: “I thought that if I took the boy a meal,” she tells an astonished neighbor, “it might be like taking a meal to Jesus.” Unlike the rest of her hypocritical church, she takes Jesus’ command to love others seriously, and we see the strength of God’s blessing in her life when she steps out in obedience.