Trust Fund from Mapelle Films ~ Homeschool Crew Review

 

We enjoy watching movies as a family.  Some are just for fun, some are educational, but my favorites are when we get both in the same movie.  One of our recent family movie moments came to us from Mapelle Films.  We received not only their feature film Trust Fund for review, but also the companion book, Love Was Near.  The book was great for further conversation with our teen daughters after watching the movie; this was the educational part.

While we enjoyed the movie as a family, I would not want my younger children to have watched this alone. Not that there is anything objectionable, but because of the younger sister’s poor choices. The consequences weren’t always apparent, at least not at first. My girls were paying close attention to the relationship between the older sister and younger sister. When the movie came to a close, and we were discussing how we felt about the ending, my children recognized this as a retelling of The Prodigal Son. The modern twist of daughters instead of sons helped my girls relate more to this story than ever before.

If you think this movie would be great for study with the teens in your life, the creators did too.  They’ve created a downloadable study guide.  It includes scripture, deeper thoughts to get you looking beyond the surface and questions for response or discussion.  On this download page, you will also find clips for the four scenes referrenced in the guide.  Despite the companion book being written for young women, I really think the movie has universal appeal.  Don’t let those intial thoughts keep your whole family from watching.

I thought the movie did a great job at opening their eyes to the love of the Father for His children, then the book took it even further.  It also opened up wonderful, deep discussions with my girlies.  Love Was Near is written from Reese’s point of view.  Reese is the younger sister from Trust Fund.  This is “the book” she was writing during the course of the movie – how neat!  Each chapter begins with present-day Reese speaking to the reader, then a section taken from her “diary”.  The font has a handwritten look and other details on these pages let you know this is her diary, written during the events of the movie.  This was really neat to see behind the scenes and gain greater understanding of Reese’s choices.

Love Was Near is not just a during-the-movie, behind the scenes look at the story being told.  Each chapter closes with questions from Reese to the reader.  These questions are written like Reese is hanging out with a good friend, carrying on the conversation.  It certainly started many conversations for us.  We discussed together what we were reading.  And it continued with my girls bringing something up in a one-on-one conversation with me, or conversations amongst themselves.

This book would make a great study to do with teens from your church or elsewhere in your life.  There is space for writing out response to the questions directly on those pages.  We did not write in our book as we only have the one copy (though we may get each daughter their own).  We read aloud and discussed together – over snacks, of course.

 

My only wish, that there be a version of this modern take for our sons.  Click the image below to read more of our reviews of this outstanding family movie.