A boy arrives at the gate of a mosque and tells the preacher that he wants to meet God. Why? His sister is suffering from a severe eye injury that requires a lot of money for treatment. The parents are not very wealthy, though they are very religious. The father tells the boy that God is inside everyone - you just need to pray to Him, and He will fulfill all your wishes. The boy's only wish is for his sister's health to improve. So, the kid writes a letter to God seeking financial assistance. Will he receive a reply? Will his sister get better? Does God really answer your prayers?
I have watched my fair share of Indonesian dramas, so I did not doubt the movie's narrative direction. Titip Surat Untuk Tuhan is one of those "good intention" films that think intentions alone are more than enough to provide a pleasant cinematic experience. Such stories replace entertainment with nursery school-level moral lessons. The main characters are so good, so virtuous, that you feel like shaking hands with demons. Righteous behavior looks boring when it's the sole thing offered to the audience. Every frame screams, "Be good, be honest." You don't need movies for such shallow lectures. Hell, who even goes to the movies for lectures?
That little boy mentioned in the first paragraph is Tulus (M. Adhiyat). His family members get up early for prayer, but he stays in bed. Titip Surat Untuk Tuhan is made for kids like these or probably even adults. The movie says that you should not be lazy when it comes to prayers. Maintain a connection with God. No wonder that in the end, Tulus joins his family for the morning prayer. Titip Surat Untuk Tuhan favors an innocent outlook over a practical one. It says that you will be rewarded if you stick to your principles even during the toughest of situations. Those "tough situations" are nothing but God's way of testing his followers. A rich woman, Saskia (Kaemita Boediono), asks Tulus' father, Satrio (Donny Damara), to help her with tax evasion. Satrio refuses - he even returns a briefcase filled with cash. Tulus' mother, Utari (Marsha Timothy), asks her wealthy friends for a loan for her daughter's (Olivia Morrison) operation. One woman refuses, another offers her an indecent job, and a boy (an old friend) puts forward a condition: She has to stay with him and leave her husband. It's just Titip Surat Untuk Tuhan's way of saying, "Rich people are rotten." Utari, of course, rejects all the dirty business.
If you think Utari's meeting with that old male friend is random, wait for that scene where Tulus is saved by a little girl he had rescued from bullies earlier. The filmmakers aren't too concerned with coherence. In the end, they simply want to turn us into religious people. The message is that the one who walks on the right path will eventually come out as the winner. The corrupt souls will be punished; the honest man who prays to God will overcome all obstacles. All this morality is packed within a simplistic hokum that gave me the impression that I was watching one of those "educational" videos my father receives through WhatsApp forwards.
Final Score- [2/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times