I'm a conservative evangelical Christian, and I can see that this movie has a really good message. For that reason, it can be inspirational and even powerful. It will certainly enhance some people's lives, maybe even in a major way. I guarantee that many people will love this movie, and not without a good reason. If you're a Christian and have liked this kind of movie in the past, I definitely recommend it!
That being said...I can't bring myself to give this movie more than six stars. I just can't. I should be able to; this movie certainly succeeds in doing what it sets out to do, and it's certain to appeal to its intended audience by and large. The thing is, for all this movie's very legitimate strengths in being moving and inspirational and whatnot, I just don't consider it to be a "good movie", by the expected definition of that term.
The characters and storyline feel really, REALLY generic. I watched the movie a few hours ago and it feels like they're already fading from my memory. It's just all so forgettable. In a sense, I feel like I still have no idea who most of the main characters are as people or what their motivations were or why they were the way they were or anything. This is especially true of the father/husband, who is a bad father/husband, but WHY? WHY does he not like his wife anymore? Why does he not pay attention to the kid? Why is he so wrapped up in this job? Why does he make all the questionable decisions he makes? This movie would've been so much better, felt so much more real, if they had actually developed who these characters ARE, WHY they got to the place they got. In addition, it feels to me that the transformation that comes into their lives when they start praying better is a bit abrupt and not very naturally developed.
I'm not saying making major spiritual changes in your life can't yield extremely powerful, and on occasions almost instantaneous results. But here it just didn't feel too real to me, probably because I couldn't really get a feel for the characters and their motivations, and how exactly God brought them to do an entire 180. It also sort of feels like this movie teaches that if you're a spiritual person, you just won't care what happens to you or take action to address it. I mean, even if prayer is an extremely important way to address your marital issues, that doesn't mean there shouldn't be steps that you yourself take, but this seemed greatly de-emphasized by this movie. Prayer isn't always about not taking action or taking less action, it's often more about being empowered to take the right actions, while at the same time not being anxious because you're ultimately leaving things in God's hands. I don't feel like the movie did a very good job conveying this point.
Another thing that bugged me is that, toward the end of the movie, one character is shown to have committed a serious crime, and another character is sorta made to look like the "bad guy" for basically acting like you would expect a person to act when confronted with this information. It just felt really skewed to me.
This movie had some good ideas for how to make its characters real and balanced, but the implementation was pretty far off-target. I guess I should give them props for sort-of trying, but I don't think they tried nearly hard enough.
The acting in the movie was generally fairly mediocre, but it wasn't horrendous, so um, props for that.
Overall, nothing in this movie feels particularly natural or real. There's nothing mind-blowingly unrealistic, it just feels like the movie is so, SOOOO focused on delivering its message that it can't develop its own identity or grow into its own thing. It did have some good humor, and the old woman character was entertaining I s'pose, but other than that, I dunno.
For me, this movie isn't "bad" so much as it is frustrating. I guess I feel like, if the movie had tried to actually BE a movie, with characters and storyline developed well, it could've given its message even stronger, maybe a LOT stronger. If that had happened, it wouldn't feel like the movie was preaching at you visually, it would feel like the movie was showing, demonstrating, proclaiming the truth of something and bringing you into agreement with it.
I love the idea of a movie giving a message like this, but why does giving a good message release a movie from the responsibility to have natural, compelling, REAL character depth and development and well-constructed story lines? If this movie had both, its already strong message would be strengthened. The answer to this question is that, when Christians watch this sort of movie, they're so amazed and compelled by the message that nothing else matters to them.
This movie is good for what it is, really. But it could've been so much more. The only reason I'm being critical is because I want to raise the bar, REALLY raise the bar, for Christian media. There is absolutely no reason why Christians shouldn't be able to excel at writing good characters and stories. I want us to rise up and meet the challenge. But we're not going to as long as people just don't care. Even now, I'm afraid of raining on everyone's parade and dampening a perfectly inspirational experience. But I don't know what else to do. We're never going to get any better as storytellers if we never subject our stories to critical analysis.
One final note, though: This movie is billions of times better than God's Not Dead. Just sayin'.
That being said...I can't bring myself to give this movie more than six stars. I just can't. I should be able to; this movie certainly succeeds in doing what it sets out to do, and it's certain to appeal to its intended audience by and large. The thing is, for all this movie's very legitimate strengths in being moving and inspirational and whatnot, I just don't consider it to be a "good movie", by the expected definition of that term.
The characters and storyline feel really, REALLY generic. I watched the movie a few hours ago and it feels like they're already fading from my memory. It's just all so forgettable. In a sense, I feel like I still have no idea who most of the main characters are as people or what their motivations were or why they were the way they were or anything. This is especially true of the father/husband, who is a bad father/husband, but WHY? WHY does he not like his wife anymore? Why does he not pay attention to the kid? Why is he so wrapped up in this job? Why does he make all the questionable decisions he makes? This movie would've been so much better, felt so much more real, if they had actually developed who these characters ARE, WHY they got to the place they got. In addition, it feels to me that the transformation that comes into their lives when they start praying better is a bit abrupt and not very naturally developed.
I'm not saying making major spiritual changes in your life can't yield extremely powerful, and on occasions almost instantaneous results. But here it just didn't feel too real to me, probably because I couldn't really get a feel for the characters and their motivations, and how exactly God brought them to do an entire 180. It also sort of feels like this movie teaches that if you're a spiritual person, you just won't care what happens to you or take action to address it. I mean, even if prayer is an extremely important way to address your marital issues, that doesn't mean there shouldn't be steps that you yourself take, but this seemed greatly de-emphasized by this movie. Prayer isn't always about not taking action or taking less action, it's often more about being empowered to take the right actions, while at the same time not being anxious because you're ultimately leaving things in God's hands. I don't feel like the movie did a very good job conveying this point.
Another thing that bugged me is that, toward the end of the movie, one character is shown to have committed a serious crime, and another character is sorta made to look like the "bad guy" for basically acting like you would expect a person to act when confronted with this information. It just felt really skewed to me.
This movie had some good ideas for how to make its characters real and balanced, but the implementation was pretty far off-target. I guess I should give them props for sort-of trying, but I don't think they tried nearly hard enough.
The acting in the movie was generally fairly mediocre, but it wasn't horrendous, so um, props for that.
Overall, nothing in this movie feels particularly natural or real. There's nothing mind-blowingly unrealistic, it just feels like the movie is so, SOOOO focused on delivering its message that it can't develop its own identity or grow into its own thing. It did have some good humor, and the old woman character was entertaining I s'pose, but other than that, I dunno.
For me, this movie isn't "bad" so much as it is frustrating. I guess I feel like, if the movie had tried to actually BE a movie, with characters and storyline developed well, it could've given its message even stronger, maybe a LOT stronger. If that had happened, it wouldn't feel like the movie was preaching at you visually, it would feel like the movie was showing, demonstrating, proclaiming the truth of something and bringing you into agreement with it.
I love the idea of a movie giving a message like this, but why does giving a good message release a movie from the responsibility to have natural, compelling, REAL character depth and development and well-constructed story lines? If this movie had both, its already strong message would be strengthened. The answer to this question is that, when Christians watch this sort of movie, they're so amazed and compelled by the message that nothing else matters to them.
This movie is good for what it is, really. But it could've been so much more. The only reason I'm being critical is because I want to raise the bar, REALLY raise the bar, for Christian media. There is absolutely no reason why Christians shouldn't be able to excel at writing good characters and stories. I want us to rise up and meet the challenge. But we're not going to as long as people just don't care. Even now, I'm afraid of raining on everyone's parade and dampening a perfectly inspirational experience. But I don't know what else to do. We're never going to get any better as storytellers if we never subject our stories to critical analysis.
One final note, though: This movie is billions of times better than God's Not Dead. Just sayin'.