“Paul” A Comedy With An Atheistic Twist

When I saw the poster of the movie “Paul” at the movie theatre (left) I said to myself “meh, another children’s movie with an alien”. Sifting through the pages of IMDB I came upon this title which displayed a decent rating that led me to read more about it.

The info on IMDB got me interested in seeing this movie. I called my girlfriend—she makes my movie experience a lot more beautiful, and told her we’re going to see a comedy tonight. Up until the opening scene I had mixed expectations. Amazingly though, for the whole 104 minutes Thee and I couldn’t stop laughing. The plot was very interesting and smooth—very fast paced.

Ruth Buggs: The world is 4000 years old and can only be the product of intelligent design.
Paul: [offscreen in the bathroom] That's horseshit!

However, being a funny comedy is not the reason I’m writing this post. The actual thing that hugely surprised me is the very obvious atheistic message embedded in the script. It wasn’t a sublime message or a passing comment, it was really a straightforward message.

Besides the fact that I enjoyed this original twist, what intrigued me most was how come this was showing in Lebanese theatres when it has such a strong anti-theistic—anti-Christian more specifically—message. Could it be that freedom of expression is being given more room to swivel in? Or are the people at the media censorship department clueless of this fact? Either way, I’m glad I saw this movie. I highly recommend it!