For Easter Sunday, I took myself and a baggie full of chocolate Reese’s eggs to the movie theater and handed ’em out like candy (which, yeah, they are) to the theater crew in a furious fit of guilt for making them work Easter. I then went to see I Can Only Imagine, the film about the Christian pop song that everybody but me is aware of. Guess I went to see a religious film on Easter but, really, it was that or Paul, Apostle of Christ or Sherlock Gnomes. I probably made the right choice.
So, yes, there is a song I Can Only Imagine that I’m not aware of because A) I rarely listen to live radio, settling for podcasts and audiobooks instead, and B) when I do, it’s not usually a station that would carry Christian rock or pop (even if the song hit the mainstream back in the 90s). So this is a musical biopic about the dude who wrote the song…
This is a pretty good biopic that suffers a little from its MPAA rating, its believe the viewer knows the story, and, weirdly possibly a reticence to get too Christian.
The MPAA rating issue causes a disconnect since the songwriter was beaten by his dad as a kid… but the movie doesn’t show us this. I inferred maybe he was violent but when the movie circles back to the story later in life… but they are FAR more blunt about the violence in dialog than they were in display.
The seeming hesitancy to get too religious in the movie is also very weird and discordant in the script. The movie opens with the kid (in 1985) listening to Don’t Bring Me Down (Jeff Lynne) and a U2 song… neither Christian. He also listens to some Amy Grant who is… but we never see him go to church though he does mentioning singing there once (after singing in the school play of Oklahoma). Then, later in life, he’s playing in a non-Christian band without enough songs and decides to sing a Christian song and suddenly he’s all about the faith. But it didn’t seem like was…
It’s a bit weird for a movie about a faith-based song to seem to shy away from faith-based visuals. But it does and I suspect maybe to tempt in people who don’t normally see faith-based movies, perhaps. I don’t know if it was a wise choice since it made the film feel like it was flailing about and missing important scenes.
Meanwhile, the dad is played by Dennis Quaid who doesn’t work nearly enough. He’s playing a half-drunk dirtbag for most of it but he can’t stop being Dennis Quaid (I like the actor). The only other actor of note in the film is Trace Adkins playing Trace Adkins playing the manager of the band. I suspect he’s just playin’ himself but he’s good at it.
This is a good enough and genuinely moving enough musical biopic about a guy (and his band, who kind of get the short end of the stick) trying to make it big. It just so happens they make it big with that one song that’s a superhit. This does also mean the movie avoids the usual musician biopic cliches like getting hooked on drugs or cheatin’ on his woman. I rather liked the movie… even if I was a bit letdown by the amazing song everyone and his brother apparently loved. But that’s just me, bein’ a heathen I guess!
Score: 81