We open with a man with a long white beard, who is apparently God, standing in a library and writing the names of the Ellis family in his book of life. They are the couple Zeke and Zenobia, and their sons—in order of age, from oldest to youngest—Zebedee, Zachariah and Zion. A voice-over narration says that, though an ordinary family, he is particularly interested in their lives. Large-scale flo...