Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: I Can Only Imagine (2018)

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-07-2018, 06:17 PM:

Every few years, a faith-based movie comes out that is pretty good, draws a larger-than-predicted audience, and spawns a flurry of terrible faith-based wannabe movies in its wake.

This year's pretty good faith-based movie is I Can Only Imagine, a fairly standard abused-kid-makes-good (and gets the girl) story with a few side-tracks thrown in. Singer Bart Millard gets beat up, gets fed up, tells his girlfriend to shut up, gets out of town, joins a band, and finds religion, but can't get any traction until he meets a Willie-Nelson-looking insider, and and then gets an amazingly lucky break from none other than Amy Grant, who, if you were into Christian music in the '90s, is about as big as it gets.

The story reminded me in a few spots of Coal Miner's Daughter, except the mean dad in this movie is way worse to his kid than Loretta Lynn's husband was to her. The abuse scenes illustrate how PG vs PG-13 these days is largely a function of blood and language -- no blood, no language, you can get a PG, no matter how awful the actions are.

That said, Dennis Quaid does a fine job as the bad dad in this movie. Trace Adkins is almost as good as the manager, Steve Brickell. He plays that guy like he's lived that story, or something similar to it, and he probably has.

I didn't like the ending, due to the fact that there was a lot of talk about Mean Dad finding redemption through Christianity, but there was zero talk about Bart finding a little redemption himself. He goes through just as many changes as the old man does, but the movie acts like he was always the perfect singer/songwriter/human being, just the world hadn't caught up to him yet.

There are a few plot holes: There is no mention of what happened to Bart's mom, who seems like a perfectly normal mom-type character, except for the fact that she ran of and left her son with a proven abuser. And in a "real" family photo shown at the end, there's a younger brother that's never mentioned in the movie.

The scene where Amy Grant makes a big sacrifice of her own career to help Bart out comes off as a little contrived (I wonder if that's how it really happened -- Wikipedia doesn't say), and the second half of the movie drags a little, but as a whole it's uplifting and makes people come out smiling, so I guess it's worthwhile.

The show has a lot of good music in it (even some non-Christian rock'n'roll sneaks its way in there) and in a surprising twist for a Christian movie, it doesn't end with a sermon scene, which all by itself is worth an extra half star from me.

2.5 out of 5 stars.

Posted by Cobi Fox (Member # 10476) on 05-20-2018, 07:52 PM:

This film was a pleasant surprise for me. Going in, I was expecting the usual cringeworthy acting, clumsy cinematography, and ham-fisted delivery of a faith-based message one would usually associate with Christian movies. However, upon watching the movie, I found that I Can Only Imagine had none of these flaws. The acting was very natural, and the whole cast clearly put passion into their performances. But what's especially of note is the story: there is no demonizing of atheists, politics, nor any other agenda being pushed in this film. This may be a first for a modern Christian movie. Instead, it tells the story of Bart Miller's rise to stardom, the redemption of his abusive father, and how Bart wrote the hit song, I Can Only Imagine. This film is a production of high quality, and I think most people, Christian or otherwise, will appreciate it for that. I Can Only Imagine was certainly worth the time and money spent at the AMC. I would recommend watching this movie if you get a chance to. 8/10