Original subtitles

You know, I mean, look at what we're doing. Let's, everybody stop.

Okay, take a look around you, please.

Look, not at me, no, I'm not talking about me. Don't look at me, look around

you. Do you see, are the lights on?

Are we having a good time?

Are we seeing different things that we'd like to see? Is there anything you find

attractive or unattractive?

All right, everyone, please stay together.

Come on.

Why do people come to art museums?

Why do they leave the flowers outside and come inside and look at a picture of

flower? Well, they're not just pictures, baby. They're works of art.

Well, what's the difference?

Well, you know it's a work of art when... What I mean is, art is... I

mean, Andrew's going to tell you about art.

Okay. Art is a human being's attempt

to explain his soul to the world.

So if the world never actually sees the art, then it isn't really art.

No, no. Okay, okay.

Art is God's way of expressing himself through human beings.

Yeah, that's good. That's good. Keep going. And being inspired by God, the

beings want...

To reflect themselves and reflect... Yes, I... I got it, I got it.

Art is in the eye of the beholder.

For an example, take this picture right... Oh, dear.

It's very realistic.

Maybe he's trying to make a statement about flight.

Dogs don't fly.

Maybe that's what he's trying to say.

I like it.

It makes me feel something.

I feel sorry for the man, but I'm excited for the dog because he's ready

start on a great adventure.

That's it.

Moving right along.

Now that's a work of art right there.

All these people passing each other in a museum.

Each has a story.

Each could change the other.

If only he talked to her. If only she had sat down next to him.

A simple decision could change a life forever.

Like the whole world is this giant kinetic sculpture that's been set in

by God.

You know, sometimes humans need an angel in their lives for weeks, even months.

And then sometimes they just bump into an angel one day and changes everything.

Like people passing in a museum. Well, there are three assignments in these

galleries. Right now they look like three strangers.

But once each one bumps into an angel, well, when it's God's canvas, you never

know what the final picture is going to be.

When you walk down the road,

heavy burden, heavy load, I

will rise and I will walk with you.

I'll walk with you till the sun don't even shine.

Walk with you.

Every time I tell you, I'll walk with you.

Believe me, I'll walk with you.

How many of you have ever seen dancers?

Okay, well, a long time ago, a man named Louis Lautrec painted this picture of a

dancer. Now, what is she doing?

Resting. Good. Does she look tired? Does she look happy?

She looks like no one picked her to be on his team.

Okay, Brooke didn't just see the lady, right? She saw how the lady felt.

Now, today when you're painting your pictures, I don't want you to paint

I want you to paint feelings.

Get back.

Two feet back.

Keep two feet away from the artwork, son.

Oh, sorry.

Morgan, come back over here to the classroom. Can't be too careful with

one.

Hmm.

Thomas Buechner.

It is a pretty picture.

Yes, ma 'am. We want to keep her that way.

I wonder what she's thinking.

Is she tired like the dancer, or is she thinking about her future?

Could be, ma 'am.

She looks curious, tender, innocent.

Uh -huh.

You've got an awful lot of time to look at this picture.

I've got 30 years.

It's been the best part of this job.

Ever think you spend too much time with pictures of people and

not enough time with real people?

Oh, Bud, are you ready for the party?

Yes, ma 'am. Well, we'll start at 4 .45.

We don't want to keep you on your last day.

I appreciate that.

After 30 years, you really don't want to stick around after closing.

30 years.

That's quite a run.

Yes, it was.

Excuse me. Pardon me.

Excuse me.

Pardon me.

You can't do that.

Oh, but I was told I can't set up in here.

But it's okay. It's part of our new education program.

It's not educational enough just to look at the paintings?

These are gifted children. They have a special aptitude for art.

Watch.

Hello, children.

Hello. My name is Mrs. Weinstein, and I'm the museum director.

We're very happy to have you with us today.

Can anyone tell me what is special about this painting?

It's lots of flowers.

Yes.

Anything else?

Yes.

It's the sunlight on the flowers.

The flowers are all the same.

But the light changes from there to there.

Yes.

This painter, a man named Monet, was fascinated by light. And he would paint

same scene at different times of the day to see how light changes how we see

things.

Very good work.

Well, have fun being busy little artists.

Thank you.

Don't worry.

They're gifted.

Yes, ma 'am.

Well, we'll see you at 4 .45.

Yes, ma 'am.

They're throwing you a retirement party?

Right.

You wake up one morning, and you realize that at 5 o 'clock that night, your

whole life is going to change forever.

Well, maybe for the better.

You'll have more time for life and fun and friends.

She's the only friend I ever needed.

The only friend you ever needed?

Or the only friend you ever had?

Gotcha!

Gotcha! Excuse me.

It's a lovely shade of red.

Jared, get up. Sit over here.

It was an accident.

Not on my watch.

There are no accidents on my watch.

Not to this feeling.

Thank you, ma 'am.

I was just in the right place at the right time.

You're very lucky.

I wouldn't call it that.

Ladies and gentlemen.

We're going to move your base of operations.

Please step across the hall and into the contemporary gallery. I'm so sorry. It

won't happen again. In the modern art gallery, ma 'am, one more splatter won't

make any difference.

Okay, kids, let's go. Come on, get your things together.

You have to move.

Are you okay?

What do you mean?

Well, something sure got you going there.

I hope you enjoy the rest of the museum, ma 'am.

What is it?

Bumblebee under a microscope?

Maybe they hung it upside down.

What difference would it make?

Little something in between.

Pardon me.

What do you think that little bump means?

Is it more of the black or less of the yellow?

You're analyzing.

Don't analyze, just look.

Come on, Morgan. This way.

I guess he saw something he liked.

What do you think it is?

Why does it have to be something?

It just is.

There's so much about modern art. I just don't understand.

Modern? There is no modern.

Rembrandt is modern.

There is only art.

But when I don't understand it... Well, you're asking the wrong questions.

Well, what should I ask?

Ask, does it move me?

Does it please me?

Does it make me see in a way I haven't seen? Does it make me think in a way

never thought?

I don't know.

Well, if it doesn't, then it's not art.

That seems a little strict.

Well, it has to be.

Otherwise, anything.

wind up on these walls.

Like this, for example.

You don't like this, then?

This is a miserable painting.

It's an affront to any serious artist who's ever truly tried to create

new. Do you talk like an artist yourself?

I am.

Antonio Gaudi, the Brazilian, who is, no, not related to Gaudi, the Spanish

architect.

What kind of paintings does the Brazilian Antonio Gaudi paint?

This one.

You like Impressionism?

Oh, well, I mean, I don't know if I like it as much as, you know, other stuff,

but...

Truth is, I just came in here to get out of the cold.

There's nothing wrong with that.

It's awful out there.

It's rough.

But it's nice to warm up by some great art.

I love the Impressionists.

They always make me feel so warm because their world is so... sunny.

Just filled with light.

Cafe Living Queens.

Quaint isn't so bad, Constance.

How did you know my name?

Because I know you, Constance.

From the inside out.

I know your heart rate, and your blood pressure, and your bone marrow cells,

your veins, and your ventricles, and those x -rays, and those CAT scans.

And those cancerous cells.

That are spreading from your liver throughout your body.

You know my doctor?

You talk to him?

No.

I know you're dying.

Yes. I just found out today. How do you know?

I'm the angel of death.

I'm sorry.

I'm not feeling very well. Can you repeat that, please?

I'm an angel, Carpenter.

Sent by God.

I... I really have to go.

You really are the angel of death.

Of all my paintings, I have struggled with this one the most.

Why?

I had no intention when I painted it. No purpose.

I just...

Felt driven to do it. Even the little bump there, I had to include it. I

couldn't even tell you why.

I don't even know why I painted this thing.

And here it hangs.

The best known of my work.

Some cruel joke.

Are all your paintings so... Minimal?

Not the early ones.

You know what Picasso said?

When I was a child I could draw like Raphael But it took me a lifetime to

how to draw like a child

Look at me

What's your name Monica

See, I don't have an over -education, so I just trust in God.

Tell you a secret.

God didn't go to college either.

You know, education may help you get through this world, but it's faith that

gets you into the next.

I do have that.

Wouldn't you know it?

First angel that God sends me, the angel of death.

Am I going to die today?

No.

But today's important.

See, God thought that if you knew right off the bat there's an angel watching

over you, then you'll be ready for when we meet again.

Cancer thing's going to take a long time.

Yes. I'm afraid it is.

Does it hurt?

Sometimes.

No, that's okay.

I've been hurt before.

Pretty tough woman.

Yes, you are.

That's not what I'm afraid of.

What is it then?

My family.

I mean, what's going to happen to them?

How can I leave them?

You know, I sell bagels to these Wall Street millionaires, you know, but does

that money rub off? You know, what am I going to do when the medical bill's

coming? And what's my family supposed to ask?

They will mourn a wonderful woman.

What do I do now?

I don't know what to do tomorrow.

I don't even know what to do in the next half hour.

Well, I've got an idea about the next half hour.

You are...

surrounded by beauty.

And you need to find peace.

And that's why a lot of people come here.

So, let's take a walk.

Look at some paintings.

You couldn't kill me.

You're painting.

Oh, please. Keep the head still.

If you painted it and you don't know why, do you suppose perhaps you were

inspired? By what?

By God?

By a muse?

I simply paint because I have to.

I had to paint that.

Just like I have to draw this.

Oh, look.

There you are.

That's wonderful.

That's banal.

It's the art.

is in the selection, the simplification.

You take away everything extraneous and you leave just what is important.

There. Now that is a little closer to the bone.

Oh, yes. I can still see me in there.

I want to capture something else. There is a kind of light in you.

I can't quite...

I want to reach past the image and find the essence. Go past the reality and

find the dream.

The truth.

Not the face you have, but the life you have.

It probably looks like a child's scrawl to you.

To still see the world as a child does.

That's your gift.

May I keep this?

They're just sketches.

Failures.

They're all worthless.

Don't say that.

I'm sure there are wonderful things in here.

What are you doing with this?

I'm not crazy. I'm not going to hurt anyone.

I'm just going to destroy this humiliation.

No, Antonio, you can't do that. Monica, I come here every day and I sit and I

watch people hoping that just one will stop and look at this and see something,

experience something.

But no one ever feels anything except the urge to move on. It has failed to

evoke a single genuine response other than laughter.

And ridicule. That doesn't give you the right to destroy a work of art.

I have painted something that I can't explain.

Why should I expect anyone else to? Because sometimes God asks us to do

that we don't understand.

God again.

That questionable source of my dubious inspiration.

God inspired Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael. Why not you? Why not Antonio

Gaudi? Why not your work of art?

That's my whole point, Monica.

It's not art. It's a mistake.

And I'm going to correct that right now.

Please, give me just 15 minutes.

15 minutes?

What difference will that make?

15 minutes and the right hands can make a masterpiece.

Please.

Just 15 minutes.

Spent too much time cleaning.

Wish I'd put down that moth and danced more.

I wish I'd learned to play the piano.

I never saw the Grand Canyon.

There's still time.

Mom, maybe.

But me and my husband will never have a 50th wedding anniversary.

And I will never get to see my baby get married.

And I will never get to hold my grandchild in my lap.

Constance, life is full of nevers.

You never thought you'd get cancer. You never thought you'd walk into this

museum.

You never thought you'd meet an angel.

But whether life is long or whether life is short, you never know what's going

to come next.

Look at that.

Some people love that painting, some hate it.

It affects people.

My whole life, that's all I've wanted, to get a response.

Do you really need it?

Isn't it enough just to have painted?

Isn't every painting at its core essentially a declaration, a statement

artist that says, Here I am.

And you've done that.

You may not know why. You may not understand how.

You had to express it, and you did.

Here I am.

Here I am.

You know what this feels like.

Here I am.

I was a boy.

In Brazil.

In the slums of Rio.

My mother. My mother was a beauty.

Almond eyes.

Soft brown skin.

There was always a place for me on her lap.

Until she got sick.

My father.

After she was gone.

He sat on the porch.

Day after day.

Staring. Out at the ocean.

As if that could give him an answer.

I cried.

He stared.

One day I was coming up the steps to our house and I fell. I could hear the bone

in my arm snap.

I heard desperately.

I cried, Papa.

Father!

Papa!

Help me.

I'm right here.

Here I am.

He stared out over the ocean.

And I started screaming, Papa.

Here I am.

Here I am.

He never took his eyes off the wife.

Blue Sea.

He never noticed me again.

Nobody has.

Nobody has ever stopped for more than a few

seconds.

I have.

And so has God.

I think he likes your painting. He thinks you're onto something.

Oh, he does?

That's a relief.

You have ten minutes.

Okay.

Tell me about this picture.

Me?

Tell you about this painting?

Yes. What is it about her expression that moves you?

Something in the eyes.

She's holding that bouquet.

And she looks at me as if to say, is the rest of the world as beautiful as this?

I've been here 30 years and I still haven't been able to answer her.

Well, true friends can be very patient.

She's my only friend.

But, Bud, you're going to need real friends to enjoy retirement.

The last friends I had were in Vietnam, and like I said, I don't talk about

that. You don't talk about Vietnam, but it's my guess that you wake up every

morning and the memory of something that happened there haunts you. And you

can't wait to walk in here and look into the face of this girl to forget what

happened on the other side of the world.

Yes, ma 'am.

Tell me.

Tell me what happened in Vietnam.

And tell me what this picture puts out of your head every day.

Ben Trey.

It's in the Delta.

Near Van Long.

Third Battalion, 60th Infantry.

What happened in Ben Trey?

Nothing.

Why am I telling you this?

I've never told this story to anyone before.

But you've been hiding in this museum for 30 years.

But tonight you're going to retire and you're going to walk out that door and

you're not going to have any place to hide anymore.

You need to get this all out.

Get it all out now.

We made friends with the Vietnamese kids.

These kids were on the base a lot.

We'd have them run errands and pay them in rations. They loved chocolate.

We wanted to show them what Christmas was like.

I see I didn't think it was a good idea. He told us not to do it, but for the

first time in my life, I disobeyed orders.

So...

It was Christmas morning.

We were in the chapel.

We had all the kids there.

Teaching them carols.

They didn't know what they meant, but they were happy.

We gave them their presents.

And you should have seen them.

Tiny little things.

Holding the stuffed animals with chocolate all over their faces.

Singing Jingle Bells.

So, we're in church.

The kids are singing.

All of a sudden, the door kicked open and a hand grenade rolled in.

Everyone screamed.

All the kids holding their stuffed animals and chocolate ran out that door

straight into a fusillade of gunfire.

The B .C. gunned them down like it was a shooting gallery.

There was nothing I could do.

One minute they were running, next minute there was a splatter of bullets,

minute they were down, pouring blood into the mud.

Then there was nothing but silence.

Just children, toys, and blood.

So... You see, it...

It's not safe to be a friend of mine.

I can't even look at kids anymore.

Except for her.

She'll never get old.

She'll always stay just at that moment before innocence disappears.

They can't kill her.

Ten more minutes till the party. Okay, I'll do one final walkthrough.

Do you mind if I join you?

Be my guest.

Well, I'll see you down the hall.

Oh, Mrs. Weinstein, could you come here, please?

I look around at all these artists.

They've left us with beautiful, beautiful things that will live forever.

And I think, what have I done with my life?

What difference did I make in the world?

Can you wait three minutes?

Would God get upset?

If I left, you know, I have to go pick my son up from school.

Oh, you forgot.

He's coming home late today.

Right, yes.

He went on a field trip with his class.

Ten minutes.

Time's up.

Just a little bit longer, please. I'm sorry, Monica. Whatever miracle you were

waiting for didn't happen.

Oh, no.

Don't. No, get out of my way.

I'm stopping you from making a mistake.

The miracle, the answer you've been waiting for is about to happen, but that

painting has to be here when it's done. What are you talking about?

There was a reason you painted this. As a matter of fact, there were many

reasons. Some of them you will never know.

But God knows all of them, and he's bringing them all together right now.

I believe you.

speaking the truth.

I am an angel.

An angel?

Yes.

In this museum, for a few moments, an angel has come into your life to say,

exists, Antonio.

And he loves you.

And you exist because God created you.

And he knows the art you create is your way of calling home to the Father and

saying, Here I am.

Yes.

In my way.

In my stupid way.

I've tried to tell him that.

You don't like this painting because you don't know why you made it.

God knows.

Because he inspired you.

And he had a greater plan than you could ever imagine.

And it's walking in here right now.

What are you doing with that knife?

I painted this.

And I don't like it. So I'm going to rip it up.

You can't.

It's not finished yet.

Not finished?

What is that?

That's what you forgot.

I... I forgot a plant?

Not really a plant.

That's me.

What?

See?

This is how I felt when I was just a little kid.

Just a bump in the ground that nobody ever noticed.

But my mom, she said I was like...

A seed that God planted.

See?

This is the ground.

This is the sunshine.

And sometimes it has to rain.

But if you wait long enough, you'll start to grow.

See?

I see.

So you needed this painting to remind you of what you feel.

Yeah.

And what do you feel?

I feel like, hey, look at me, I grew up.

Here I am.

Here I am.

Here.

You wanted to know what you've done with your life.

You wanted to know what you're leaving behind.

He's standing right there, Constance.

Your son.

That's your masterpiece.

Morgan?

Mom! Hey!

Look what I made!

Yeah, it's a very beautiful painting, Morgan.

now closed. Please proceed to the nearest exit.

Come on.

Ladies and gentlemen, the museum is closed.

Sorry, sir.

I was just leaving. I've seen what I came here to see.

Hate to kick you folks out, but we're just about to... But, but, these are

friends of mine. This is Monica, and this is Andrew.

Hi. Hi. Well, in that case, we're just about to have a reception around there.

Would you like a piece of cake?

That sounds delightful.

Come on.

Oh, my God.

What is this?

Isn't it amazing? It's my granddaughter.

And who are you?

Amanda Erickson.

And that was me a long, long time ago.

That was in your great -grandmother's front hall.

There were some stairs that went off that way.

Innocence lives after all.

But this moment of innocence is frozen in time by paint.

But real people...

Can't stay frozen. They've got to get on with their lives as God intended.

I'm not very religious.

I'm not talking about religion.

I'm talking about God.

Something very special is happening here. And if you'll just open yourself

it, you'll realize God is trying to tell you something.

He loves you, bud. He cares.

And when you leave here tonight, you will not be alone.

You've got friends in heaven, and you've got friends in this place right here,

right now.

I don't deserve a friend.

Bud, you disobeyed orders, and you gave a Christmas party for some children

30 years ago. And you blame yourself for what happened to those children.

And you haven't been able to reach out for a friend since.

It was raining that day. Rain would have sent those children inside one way or

another. And this tragedy would have happened with or without you.

How did you know that it... I just know. Believe me, I just know. Now, you've

been looking at this painting for 30 years to keep from looking at your

Now, the guilt is over and the job is done.

So say goodbye to your painted friend and say hello to a real live one.

I'm glad I met you.

Just like bumping into an angel.

Just like that.

You know, we're having a little party out there. Would you like some cake?

That's a very pretty picture.

Another day, another work of art.

Let's go, baby. The museum is now closed.

Come along, dear.