I recently watched this at a church. I couldn't believe it when people were standing up and clapping when the credits rolled.
This is a movie with plot lines about high school age kids you've heard before, only with messages about religion and faith. It's one of those movies that tries to be real but misses and becomes stereotypical and sappy rather than interesting. Jake, the varsity jock has it all: a hot girlfriend, cool friends, team captain, but what a twist, there's something missing from his life! And the movie becomes centered around bringing people together through religion. The whole scenario of Jake's old friend going to school and killing himself while there was gimmicky, but it could have been redeemed with some real exploration about what really causes these feelings of isolation. What the plot focuses on is bring people together through faith, but the way it's carried out is not realistic and feels preachy: as if all these kids in this movie should come together under one faith and this particular faith is what people are missing from their lives. I did not believe these characters or their dialog, they don't act like real people, and these moral messages about faith and Christianity are too propaganda ridden and unconvincing. I think movies like this are meant to grab people who are agnostic as means of showing them how important faith is to life, but I don't this movie remotely does the job. In short, I do not recommend this to anyone.
This is a movie with plot lines about high school age kids you've heard before, only with messages about religion and faith. It's one of those movies that tries to be real but misses and becomes stereotypical and sappy rather than interesting. Jake, the varsity jock has it all: a hot girlfriend, cool friends, team captain, but what a twist, there's something missing from his life! And the movie becomes centered around bringing people together through religion. The whole scenario of Jake's old friend going to school and killing himself while there was gimmicky, but it could have been redeemed with some real exploration about what really causes these feelings of isolation. What the plot focuses on is bring people together through faith, but the way it's carried out is not realistic and feels preachy: as if all these kids in this movie should come together under one faith and this particular faith is what people are missing from their lives. I did not believe these characters or their dialog, they don't act like real people, and these moral messages about faith and Christianity are too propaganda ridden and unconvincing. I think movies like this are meant to grab people who are agnostic as means of showing them how important faith is to life, but I don't this movie remotely does the job. In short, I do not recommend this to anyone.