As a film

This movie isn’t much more than a Lifetime Movie of the Week when it comes to objective standards of quality film-making. The bit players and supporting actors are atrocious. I’m no engineer, so were I to design and build a robot meant for locomotion, its gait would be less clunky than the dialogue here. It has the lighting and mood of a miracle medication commercial at times (you know, when the person has been relieved of their severe condition and is experiencing quality of life again). This movie swings and misses all over the place.

Except for the lead actress. She has the difficult job of running the gamut of emotions from stoically resolute to utterly heartbroken. One in which she’s bound to be hated (because people can’t seem to divorce theater from reality nowadays), whether in the beginning by pro-lifers or in the end by pro-choicers. In a role that gets increasingly weepy by the end, she does a fine job. That, and six distinctive scenes meant to twist your heart into all manner of uncomfortable contortions. The most infamous of these happens early on when the lead witnesses a live abortion for the first time, despite years of working at the clinic. Infamous, because it’s what earned the movie its R rating and has made headlines all over the place. Later on in the movie, this scene is somewhat repeated and lengthened. Her two abortions (especially the first one) are horrifying. After that we have a group of Christian protesters praying over two full barrels. I don’t need to go into anymore detail beyond that. Then there’s a bait-and-switch “Wait just a darn minute” courtroom climax that results in “Oh, now I get it”. And finally, a rose ceremony commemorating the babies killed at the clinic. The phrase “saving grace” usually applies to an unimportant component of a film. The fact that six scenes in an otherwise unremarkable movie evoke a visceral response turns a mediocre movie into a good one, not great, but effective enough.

But this movie isn’t about making a great film. Christian filmmakers know they will never win awards for message movies anyway, and actors in these movies have got to be aware roles like this will not only not help further their careers, but hamper them in all likelihood.

As a message

That’s the goal of this movie after all. Without the heavy-handed (some might say preachy) dialogue, this movie becomes altogether moot. Characters say lines to each other they might as well be saying right to the camera. And fair time is given to the Planned Parenthood side of the debate. Mainstream movies are not all that kind to conservative and Christian themes (outside of the Cohen brothers’ movies). PP’s propaganda is spewed from the mouth of the Wicked Witch of the…I mean clinic director. Seriously, she’s characterized as a callous, vicious, uncaring monster of a woman who actually advises her employees to neither marry, nor become mothers. Talk about your supervisor not allowing you to compartmentalize your home and professional life. But I have seen the callousness of PP directors and higher-ups in news network interviews and the famous undercover tapes from a couple years back. This doesn’t seem to me late-90’s-Jim-Carrey-level exaggeration.

And there is a definite sense of fairness to the rest of the clinic employees. I think this is what sets it above the movies which portray Christian as unflinching monsters. Abby Johnson describes her coworkers as her best friends, and they are humanized to a large degree. She’s numb and cold in the courtroom scenes towards the director, but genuinely heartbroken when she finds out two of her friends are testifying against her. I think that’s the right way to portray it. Reasonable and thoughtful pro-lifers would say that the employees are not monsters, merely women who have misjudged what an abortion is and does.

And that’s the crux of the movie. I’ve heard interviewees, mothers who aborted their babies, former abortion employees (this industry has massive turnover), activists, and spoken personally to people who all state they were pro-abortion until they witnessed it themselves. I remember my principal in high school showing in graphic detail an abortion procedure. What was before distant and unfamiliar became up close and personal. It was sickening and decided me on the matter there and forevermore. It’s easy for a pro-lifer to say “Everyone should see this movie” and come across as self-serving to the cause.

But I genuinely believe everyone should see this or something like it before they make up their mind totally. This is such a controversial topic with so many compelling arguments from either side, someone shouldn’t support something until they’ve seen it in action. It’s like the people who doxed the American safari hunters who slayed lions without knowing that the country they visited has a large problem with old and sickly lions preying on children and weak adults. Playing the monkey who shuts up its eyes and ears so as to avoid an uncomfortable experience is unwise. If one chooses that it’s still just a normal procedure after that, so be it. No amount of eloquent dialectics from either side is going to change many minds.

As an impact on society

Clearly this movie has stirred some pots. Only Fox News would carry advertisements for it, and yet it has made several times its budget at the box office. We are living in a hyper-partisan time when lefties are clutching to abortion like a sacred manner, righties are doing the same with gun rights. I have to think (being a casual student of history) that something is going to break, either way. We are stretching our cultural elasticity to its limit. One is simultaneously eager and hesitant to see what comes next.

Side observations

Something from the aforementioned clunky dialogue to consider if you’re a pro-choice advocate: the same arguments people told themselves and their children in the ages of slavery, the holocaust, and segregation apply to abortion. They all depend on the dehumanization of what many in society consider, and will never stop considering, a human being.

Something to consider in the realm of contemporary arguments: pro-choice advocates wrongly speak of pro-lifers in that we are “pro-birth” and forget the child once it’s born. That’s a weak argument, both from a topical standpoint and a statistical one. Topical, because you can’t justify an immoral practice based on supposed outcomes far down the road. Statistical, because the overwhelming, and I mean OVERWHELMING majority of foster and adoption homes are started, funded, and run by conservatives, along with the majority of foster and adoptive parents. Clearly, conservatives who believe in sacrifice and helping others are more than just pro-birth.

Disclaimer lest this review should spark controversy

Disagree with anything I’ve said? Feel free to comment and engage in conversation. If civil, I’ll have an answer and I’ll share it respectfully. If uncivil, I’ll still be respectful to you. It’s not my place to rail, rant, and degrade others who disagree with me.