Eleanor Barkhorn at The Atlantic waylays the movie adaption of Blue Like Jazz. Her critique centers not so much on the production value as it does the message of this story. One paragraph in particular is devastating, and it reflects to some extent weaknesses inherent in the book that the movie was based on. She writes:
Unfortunately, in its attempt to be a more honest voice of evangelical Christianity, Blue Like Jazz the movie ends up saying barely anything at all. It tries to navigate a middle course between mainstream Hollywood and mainstream evangelical movie-making, and in the process loses everyone. The film doesn’t show skeptics anything distinctive about Christianity. And it tells believers not to share what they know, but instead to apologize for it.
Read the rest here.
One Comment
Ian Hugh Clary
This is a bit unrelated: Do you find it odd that the author is critical of Christian films, and says that there is a subgenre of pro-life films about abortion survivors? It’s an incidental swipe, but is it true? And beyond that, isn’t October Baby a true story? Why can’t the author just think of it as a biopic? You might know better than me, are there that many films about abortion survivors?