"Redeeming Love" Fails To Achieve Full Redemption
Starring Abigail Cowen, Tom Lewis, Famke Janssen, Logan Marshall-Green, Nina Dobrev, Eric Dane
Rated PG-13
Drama, Romance
Run time: 2 hr, 14 min
Directed by D.J. Caruso
In theaters January 21, 2022
When I was in high school (a Church of Christ high school, to be precise), the religious romance novel Redeeming Love was on every girl’s bookshelf. It was an adaptation of the book of Hosea from the Bible set in the gold rush age of the American west. It was pure enough to be approved by the teachers and parents but “sexy” enough to seem scandalous to an innocent teenage mind. It was the closest thing to a bodice ripper we were going to get without having to keep it hidden. Every girl who read it was imagining someone like Michael Hosea would patiently sit there and wait for us to shake off any sins in our lives and make our way to him and redeem ourselves to become worthy of love. If I sound a bit jaded now, well, it’s because I absolutely am. And some of those things that seemed dreamy and idealistic just don’t mesh with who I - and probably a lot of other women who read this book - have become.
The story centers around Angel (Cowen) whose birth name was Sarah, but now goes by that pseudonym while she is employed as the most beautiful prostitute in a brothel run by Duchess (Janssen) in the land of gold miners. Men line up to just get a look at her and pay an insane amount to have their name put in a lottery to be with her for half an hour (which costs even more). Michael Hosea (Lewis) sees her out in the street on a walk and feels immediately that this is the woman God wants him to be with. He manages to win the lottery a few times and spend time with Angel, but she’s a hard sell. After an encounter with another man goes wrong, she finally gives in, but Michael finds it hard to keep her content to hang around. For a myriad of reasons, Angel keeps running. He keeps waiting. And waiting.
Unlike most movies that have a Christian slant, the acting and production value of this film is relatively decent. It doesn’t sound like the cast are just reading from a script hidden just off camera, and there are a couple of known stars (Janssen, Dobrev and Dane) that help elevate the production. There isn’t as much chemistry between the two leads as there should have been, but Angel’s guarded personality and aloof manner contributed to that more than any lack of skill by Cowen. For the first time in quite a while, the male character was the one underdeveloped in the story. We get no real view of why or how he is who he is. His whole purpose is just to “get” Angel and save her. For the most part, it’s harmless and endearing, but by the end, I was bristling at how much her past filled with an alarming amount of trauma is reduced to nothing, and she’s begging for forgiveness for things that weren’t entirely within her control.
I hadn’t revisited this story in at least a decade, when this was one of my favorite books. The adaptation itself is decent, but the story and moral didn’t sit as well with me. The basis is solid: that God always forgives, and is patiently waiting for you. No issues there. But when trauma, and the effects of trauma, are not considered adequate reasons to struggle with life, and are instead things you need to apologize for and make up for, it’s hard to shake. Angel is far from perfect, and there were things she definitely could have atoned for. But dealing with feelings of inadequacy and PTSD aren’t on that list. Maybe I take it too seriously, and maybe I’d feel differently if I hadn’t had certain experiences, but I can’t divorce my assessment of the film from the uneasy feeling it left me with. The Rotten Tomatoes score of 17% (last time I looked anyways) is awfully harsh, but now that I’ve watched it, I have a good idea why many would rate it that low.