I doubt I will ever dread seeing a film for the rest of the
year more so than this one.
The first film was one of the first that I covered
on this blog and… well, it is ugly on just about every level imaginable. As
such, I spent two weeks prior to the film’s release to try and convince someone
I knew,
anyone I knew, to see this
film with me. Needless to say, trying to sell someone else on a film that even
you don’t want to see is a tall order. Thankfully, I did find someone else to
watch it with and share the pain, but that kind of shows just how much seems to
have changed over the last two years. Back then, I was that ill-prepared that I
had to edit down entire pages worth of notes on the film out of some fear that
I’d piss off Christians; now, I actually some confidence in being able to be
non-biased and fair to this film. Does it deserve such treatment? Well, only one way to find out as we look at this inexplicably wide release; seriously, this
is the biggest release I’ve seen for any Christian film in the last several
years over here in Australia.
More than a few times on this blog, I’ve highlighted films
that are rather fundamentally bad in places, but that I’m willing to still
champion because of the message behind it. Maybe it’s because I can get quite
sentimental in what I discuss on here, or maybe it’s just because I like trying
to find good things wherever I can, but that is the path that certain reviews
go down. However, there are times when I look back on those reviews,
specifically I Feel Pretty in this instance, and wonder if I was way too forgiving of faults for the sake
of intent. Mainly because, having sat through this film, I know that that same
idea can be used to make a far more
entertaining film.
