Animated movies are a great medium to teach young kids some valuable life lessons, but the new film "The Secret Life of Pets" is just so hilarious that a father and son who saw the film laughed throughout the entire film and forgot to reflect on the lessons the movie wishes to impart.
After doing some thinking, however, Christian writer Michael Foust realised there are three important life lessons that can be taken from "The Secret Life of Pets."
The first of these is people lose whenever they start a fight. The main characters of the movie – Max and Duke – were fighting from the start. "Max was jealous that his owner brought home a new dog (Duke), and he responded by blackmailing him. Duke retaliated, and the two ended up in an animal control truck," Foust writes in an article for The Christian Post.
Foust says his kids often fight at home, so seeing Max and Duke's conflict can help them evaluate how they can better handle conflict.
The second lesson is to always forgive. "Certainly, it would be great to avoid all divisions and disagreements, but that's just not reality in our sin-filled world. The real question is: How do you react when a friend, neighbor or even 'enemy' does something to harm you?" asks Foust.
When Max and Duke were forced to work together, they learned to forgive. Because of this, they even ended up being best friends. "Perhaps the word 'forgive' was never mentioned, but everyone in the theater knew what had happened. We could learn from it," he says.
Lastly, even bad people can turn good sometimes. The movie's villain is Snowball, a violent little rabbit who celebrated the death of a pet owner and also wanted Max dead. Even though he hated "domesticated" animals, by the movie's end he was partnering with Max and embraced being a domesticated pet.
"Not every film ends with the bad guy turning good — and it's not a stretch to turn this lesson into a biblical discussion about grace, perhaps even tossing in a mention of the once-bad guy known as the Apostle Paul," says Foust.
"The Secret Life of Pets" was released on July 8, 2016.
