I admit I’m a little tough on “Faith Based” films, can “October Baby” live up to the challenge?
(TRANSCRIPT)….
I almost recused myself from this one because I actually kind of know some of the people involved in the film October Baby. But if you’re going to be honest and critique movies about people you don’t know, then I probably should do the same with including movies of people that I might know.
This is a faith based film, October Baby, about a young woman and her discovery of her life story and how that relates to the topic of abortion. This is very much a movie that deals with that topic.
Right off the bat, why not give it some love, give it some praise just for dealing with a topic that is difficult to deal with. The abortion topic is one that most people would rather just kinda be “hands off” on. Because it’s so divisive on both sides. I think our culture is about ready to take this one head-on again. I really think this culture is coming to a point where people will begin to discuss what abortion is, whether it is immoral or moral or what the consequences are in human rights, and the rights of the unborn child. ALl that kind of stuff I think is really going to come to a head in the next few years. It won’t be easy! but it will start to happen and I think this movie deserves praise for at least addressing some of those topics.
Now, does it fall into a lot of the other traps that faith based films have fallen into? Yes. This is not a wonderfully made movie. Each baby, the Bible says, is beautifully and wonderfully made in their mother’s womb. This movie, unfortunately, is not. It is… the acting is sub-par at best. It really hurts in the editing department. It just feels clunky, and poorly put together. The pacing seems very much off. The sound editing feels very much off and normally I wouldn’t mention something like that. Except that in this movie there’s that thing that happens when you can tell that two shots are shot on different, you know, settings or with different noises nearby. Because when it cuts from one shot to another the background noise changes. It just feels very clunky and put together in a very slipshod way, in a lot of ways. And that is not untypical for these faith based films.
The way these films make it is because they deal with topics in a way that a certain group of people want them dealt with. and that is how this movie will succeed, if it succeeds, because people believe in what it says and what the message is. And very much a message in this movie about finding who you are, about what that means and really about being wanted.
The overall theme of this movie is are you wanted, who wants you and what does that mean in your life.
October Baby is a movie that goes for a lot of emotion. It really kind of goes for those heartfelt things. Unfortunately, maybe because of the way I watch movies, I couldn’t feel it and couldn’t get into it. I believed in a lot of what they were saying but I couldn’t buy in emotionally because of how distracting the movie was. Now i watch movies with a critical eye, and in fact when I watch a faith based film because I am a Christian, I probably watch it with a MORE critical eye. And that’s probably not fair, but it’s real, it’s legitimate, I do that. And this was one, in my opinion, that didn’t stand up to that critical eye.