The floor just keeps raising. At this point, anyone who’s eye rolling at faith based studio movies is simply not paying attention. Multiple Oscar nominees, and even Jesus himself, have been key players in some of their recent, solid film history. More importantly, there stories are just really hard not to love: down on their luck good people who need a miracle to keep going. Ordinary Angels is another one in the faith based movie machine that’s sure to win: Oscar quality actor plus up and comer + adorable child + heartwarming story + God, and bam! You have a recipe for box office success…and maybe a few tears along the way.
Poor, poor Schmitt family. Ed (Reacher’s Alan Ritchson) is a broken man, losing the love of his life Theresa (Amy Acker) giving birth to their daughter Michelle (Emily Mitchell). 5 years later, and things really haven’t gotten better: the medical debt from Theresa’s passing has moved Ed’s mom Barbara (Nancy Travis) into his house to watch Ed’s oldest Ashley (Skywalker Hughes). Why not Michelle? Because the 5 year old is now dying of a horrible disease unless she gets a new liver, which the Schmitts can’t afford and have to wait years for anyways. Their miracle comes after a night of heavy drinking, but not from Ed. Rose (Tamala Jones) drops her friend Sharon Stevens (Hilary Swank) off at an AA meeting, where Sharon decides she needs purpose again…lasering in on a local newspaper highlighting a 5 year old girl who needs a new liver.
Sometimes a story is just too good, like this one. Even Are You There God’s writer Kelly Fremon Craig took a pass at this script because she saw the potential of the great story. So the approach here is to mostly get out of the way of the story, which the filmmakers mostly do a decent job of. The end goal of every scene is to simply feel the most the scene wants you to feel. If it’s sadness, not only is Michelle going to forget what her mom’s eyes look like, but she’ll cough up blood and need hospital work while a doctor tells Ed they can’t treat his daughter anymore, and Sharon has just succumbed to the vodka monster. After that? Ed’s walking Michelle through a park, taking an adventure in the stars, while Sharon gets a big donation from a corporation to help with the Schmitt medical bills…and Ashley and Michelle exchange the most adorable Christmas presents ever. No room for subtlety in this one: Sharon has a crisis of faith during REM’s Losing My Religion, obvi. But sometimes, like the truly impossible hilarious schmaltzy ending, you just have to throw up your hands and go with it because like any nice person, you just want a little girl to have a chance to live a happy life.
Also helping soften the cheese are the quality actors brought in. Reacher has taught Alan Ritchson to be sad and angry very well, as he perpetually walks around like he’s gonna dissolve into a puddle of tears at any second. Nancy Travis and Tamala Jones give some nuance and dignity to very underwritten characters. But holding it all together is Hilary Swank. It’s important to remember she’s one of the rare actors to have 2 Oscars under her belt, so this hyper religious Leigh Anne Tuohy is a walk in the park. The dialogue and character motivations she’s given are pretty poorly written, but a pro like Swank navigates them to give each scene a little extra oomph, turning Sharon from a miracle into a real character, making the wins and losses really mean something by the end of Ordinary Angels.
And if we’ve learned anything for a few years now, if you make even a decent faith based movie, the audience will come. And frankly, let’s embrace it a little. Like the equal and opposite of the horror genre, we could constantly be getting original content with better actors, and eventually, better scripts and directors if we all get lucky. Strange bedfellows, horror and faith based films. The Conjuring has been living in both worlds for some time now, but you don’t get the dark without the light right?