Redeeming Love (2022)

By: Mike Ward on Monday, January 24

PG-13 Running Time: 134 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

Though they seem to be in theaters less and less lately, faith-based movies have built in audiences and Redeeming Love is the big screen adaptation of a best-selling novel by Francine Rivers.
Tom Lewis gives a nice performance in his feature-film debut.
I think the film fully believes in its message.

NO

I think the film fully believes in its message.
Abigail Cowen just isn’t up to the task in carrying the weight of the character’s emotions and motivations. Though I will say she is willing to do everything director D.J. Caruso asks of her.
Heavy-handed and reducing women as props for men to use and covet, Redeeming Love is rather wild in how much sexual content it forces faith-based audiences to watch and sit through.

OUR REVIEW

Redeeming Love is an odd entry in the faith-based film canon, a story based on the Book of Hosea in the Old Testament and adapted from a best-selling novel by Francine Rivers. Hosea 1:2 begins with “The LORD said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom.’” The Book of Hosea is, I think it's fair to say, one of the more puzzling entries in the Bible.

Rivers’ book was praised as a Christian novel for mainstream audiences, when it would go on to sell more than 3 million copies in the 1990s and 2000s. And as faith-based films had a huge boom in the 2010s, the production team behind 2018’s hit film, I Can Only Imagine, have come together to bring Rivers’ adaptation to life on the big screen.

Director D.J. Caruso (Disturbia, xXx: Return of Xander Cage) and Rivers' adaptation of her novel, though undoubtedly well-intentioned, simply does not work. It is strange to sit through any film, but certainly a faith-based film, which tells a story of embracing a “whore,” continually drawn into “whoredom,” while a man named Michael Hosea (naturally) continues to take her back, and bring her back, to a relationship she is running away from over and over again.

The idea is basically that true love is eternal and a redemptive love can overcome any sin and forgive any sinner. If the whore can simply get married and have children with her husband in a conventional marriage arrangement, she can be saved, the man will be fulfilled, and the prophecy realized.

Lots of people I know, including some Christians who are in church each Sunday, are going to find this whole thing somewhat problematic. Redeeming Love ascribes to the notion that women routinely lack agency on their own. In this world, when considering the power that the supposed love of a man can provide, not only does a man’s love conquer all, but the female recipient should be grateful to receive it and, in turn, be indebted to him forever.

Abigail Cowen stars as Angel, a prostitute working for a madam known as The Duchess (Famke Janssen) during the 1850s California Gold Rush. Arriving in the town of Pair-A-Dice, Michael (Tom Lewis) is instantly in love the moment he first sees Angel somberly staring out a window. Everyone tells Michael to stay away - you know...because she's a whore and all - but he is obsessed with meeting her. He ignores her frequent clients, heavy workload, and even pays for time to talk with her.

Some wince-inducing flashbacks lay Angel's backstory on pretty thick, and at one point a character tells Michael that Angel has slept with thousands of men (thousands!!!). Caruso does not shy away from showing us wholesome images like, you know, people pulling up their pants after a session, or Angel fully nude with cleverly placed long hair or furniture blocking certain portions of her anatomy. In one love scene, a man’s hand cups her naked breast as they fall to the bed. And this all occurs in a Christian film. Sure, it's PG-13, but I mean...people bring families to Christian movies! And there’s more!

I’m absolutely not a prude. Believe me. However, this faith-based film has one peculiar fascination - how much sexual material can we get away with here?

Cowen is not strong enough an actor to carry this burdensome of a screenplay. Then again, she is given a rather thankless job of being both jaded and disengaged, while struggling to reconcile her emotions with a man who clearly believes he was meant to save her from herself. In his feature-film debut, Lewis is pretty good as Michael, but the screenplay presents him as a latent misogynist and possessive puppy dog of a guy. When Angel has doubts, gets scared, and turns back to her life of “whoring,” he plays fetch and retrieves her, fights for her, brings her back, and gets left time and time again.

I get that purists and the devout will find more to appreciate here than I did. I gotta say though, this movie is so bizarre. Angel has no real purpose except to service men. And even with Michael professing his love for her, she also services him. She plays into all of his wishes and desires and eventually becomes a faithful, dutiful wife and mother. At no point, does anyone truly care about what she wants - everyone tells her what they think she wants, and she eventually just accepts it.

I’m not necessarily advocating that Angel prefers being a prostitute. And it is not like people who embrace this film are ever going to consider that we really should stop demonizing and demoralizing sex workers in a modern world. But still...Angel leaves Michael multiple times. She doesn’t seem to want to be with him. Until she does. Until she is forced to. And then she bears his children.

Redeeming Love feels very beholden to traditional viewpoints that we cannot get away from fast enough. Women having a purpose and agency on their own accord is not something that should ever be taken away from them. And if the argument is that Angel wants to be with Michael because she realizes that he is good, and he is pure, and he truly does love her … then fine.

But just a thought though - and hear me out - maybe Angel can decide what she wants for herself.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Abigail Cowen, Tom Lewis, Famke Janssen, Logan Marshall-Green, Nina Dobrev, Livi Birch, Eric Dane, Brandon Auret, Jamie-Lee O’Donnell, Josh Taylor, Willie Watson

Director: D.J. Caruso
Written by: Francine Rivers, D.J. Caruso
Based on the novel “Redeeming Love” by Francine Rivers
Release Date: January 21, 2022
Universal Pictures

Though they seem to be in theaters less and less lately, faith-based movies have built in audiences and Redeeming Love is the big screen adaptation of a best-selling novel by Francine Rivers.

Tom Lewis gives a nice performance in his feature-film debut.

I think the film fully believes in its message.

I think the film fully believes in its message.

Abigail Cowen just isn’t up to the task in carrying the weight of the character’s emotions and motivations. Though I will say she is willing to do everything director D.J. Caruso asks of her.

Heavy-handed and reducing women as props for men to use and covet, Redeeming Love is rather wild in how much sexual content it forces faith-based audiences to watch and sit through.