When people say you should read the book before you watch the movie, this film proves their point exactly. A couple of weeks ago my girlfriend and I wanted to have a movie night and chose “Redeeming Love” because we heard it was faith-based. As the film started we sat in our seats expecting to watch a cheesy and wholesome story but what transpired was far from expected.
Little did we know that the reason “Redeeming Love” was considered a “faith-based” movie was because it was inspired by the book of Hosea where the prophet (Hosea) remains devoted to his wife despite her being unfaithful. In hindsight knowing this background would have made the content of the plot less of a shock to the system.
As the story plays out with Michael trying to convince Angel to leave her life as a prostitute and instead live a peaceful life on his farm as his wife, the movie pulls no punches showing the trauma she endures. The content that followed did not leave anything up to the imagination with scenes they carried out. From scenes containing sexual, verbal, and physical abuse it was honestly hard to sit through this movie and even got so graphic that we considered leaving. Though we decided to stay, when the movie finally concluded we sat in our seats feeling exhausted from what we witnessed.
Upon leaving the theatre there was lots of questions director D.J. Caruso left us with. First this movie was marketed as a christian film but why did it contain multiple prolonged “intimate”-scenes? While we did agree that abuse should not have been sugar-coated we did wonder where the line should have been drawn when acted out in media?
Looking back at this film it was not a bad movie per se, you just need to prepare before you view it. The movie contains a powerful message about unconditional love but it must be unpacked from the layers of abuse enforced on the characters. Still I highly recommend to avoid “Redeeming Love” for date-night with your significant other.
The Beat @APU 