Want a little challenge to your own faith, a little bit of drama that makes you feel good? Then this is for you. If you're looking for lots of swearing, things blowing up, and nakedness, then look elsewhere. This is the story of how Miley Cyrus and her dad should have ended up, but unfortunately not so much. But then again, Hollywood would have put their "stamp" on it, so this is probably the best outcome. It's no secret that Hollywood shies away from stories like this-had they embraced it, it may have had better photogenic qualities, etc. It may not have the best photography or a complex storyline that some may be looking for, but it may be one of the best faith-based stories I've seen in a while. More specifically, it's how one can have their faith challenged by trying to fit into the world's mold. And how that forms our definition of success. This is a story about how people who live in flyover country are forced into the Hollywood box, by the media constantly force-feeding everyone through movies, music, videos, etc. However, overall- without PROFANITY, NUDITY, GRATUITOUS DRUGS/SIMULATED SEX/SUGGESTIVE ANYTHING, this movie managed to really work. I have to admit that there were a couple of moments (without including any spoilers) that the cheese crept in. That would not be possible if the Christian-cheese factor were prevalent. You really vest yourself as an audience member. You get pulled into the struggles of the father/daughter relationship. Grace Unplugged has some good performances, as well as a heartwarming story. Once The Passion of the Christ demonstrated that BRILLIANT films could convey morality, the race was on. Movies that take a good quality moral message and then somehow cheese it up with either corny writing, or sloppy directing, or phony performances are starting to become a thing of the past. The main problem with Christian films is the cheese factor. It had some nice tunes, it had some nice ideas, but I was really hoping for something better. It felt like it was trying, until it got afraid of actually saying something interesting or different. It looks like it's trying to, but then shrinks back into the comfortable and less controversial world of much more simplistic Christian cinema. It doesn't feel like it quite gets to that place where it actually grapples with the more complicated issues of life. At the end, the daughter mostly gives up her dreams and goes back to doing what her father wants her to do. Unbelieving characters who looked like they were shaping up to actually be well-developed turned out to be stereotypically bad. It looked like it was setting up for something with nuance, but ended up with something black and white. It's the same old you've come to expect from Christian media, the same old message that Christians should be doing the same old thing, making the same old Christian things instead of branching out into the wider world. At first, this looks like it's going to be a movie about how expressing oneself and pursuing a career in a secular field can coexist with being a faithful Christian, but in the end, it just isn't. This movie was far from horrible or anything, but it didn't provide everything I hoped for in fact, I felt a bit like I'd been cheated out of a potentially better movie.
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