Words hold great power and shape our lives for a long time. This truth resurfaced while watching The Way, Way Back. In the opening scene, an overbearing adult cruelly rates a shy 14-year-old boy a “3” out of 10. Later, an unexpected friend offers healing, proving our speech can either deeply wound or uplift.

In the first three minutes of the movie, we learn that introverted 14-year-old Duncan, who is riding in the “way, way back” of a station wagon, is going on summer vacation with his mother and her overbearing boyfriend, Trent. Trent challenges Duncan to rate himself on a scale of 1-10. Hesitant to answer the question at first, the boyfriend forces the teenager to “just pick a number.” Finally, Duncan picked the number 6, at which Trent scoffed and said Duncan was only a 3! In that instant, I felt a surge of anger and turned to my friend, seated next to me in the theater, and whispered, “Who says that to someone?”

Later in the movie, Duncan finds an unexpected friend in Owen, a water park manager, and eventually opens up to him. After Duncan tells Owen that Trent rated him a 3, Duncan himself ponders, “Who says that to someone?” How easy it is at times to be careless in what we say to someone, and in those moments, diminish the worth of another!

It was good for me to feel the pain of Trent’s words to Duncan so that I could be reminded of the enormous weight of my words. And it was good for me to reread  Ephesians 4:29:

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”

Corrupting talk literally means “rotten”, and according to this verse, rotten words should not come out of our mouths. The words we should speak are those that are edifying (build up), timely (meet the needs of the moment), and gracious to those within earshot of our speech.

Failing to use wholesome words means failing to treat others as living temples meant to be built up. If we fail to use words appropriately, by both knowing what to say and what NOT to leave unsaid, then we may fail to encourage someone in a moment of need. If we fail to extend grace to those who receive our words, we may fail to offer goodwill and loving-kindness to others.

At the end of an unforgettable summer,  Owen meets Trent, the overbearing boyfriend, for the first time and introduces himself as, “I’m Owen, friend of the 3.” Just as Owen brilliantly reclaimed the painful label at the end of the film by introducing himself as a “friend of the 3,” we can counter cruelty with fierce, supportive friendship.