Culture Representation: Taking place in northeastern Italy, the action film “Turbulence” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An affluent married couple experience terror when they are trapped on a hot air balloon with a woman who wants to get revenge on the husband.
Culture Audience: “Turbulence” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching stupid and unrealistic action movies.
Kelsey Grammer in “Turbulence” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)
The aptly titled, awful action flick “Turbulence” is a rough watch. Even by low-budget schlock standards, Turbulence looks too fake in this poorly made, terribly acted story about a married couple experiencing terror on a hot air balloon. “Turbulence” has such unrealistic physics for this hot air balloon ride from hell, the movie should be classified as a science fiction film.
Directed by in Claudio Fäh and written by Andy Mayson (who is one of the movie’s producers), “Turbulence” takes place in northeastern Italy but was actually filmed in Zurich, Switzerland. The movie has a very small number of people in its cast but a large number of cringeworthy scenes. Parts of the movie that should be suspenseful are instead laughable because of all the ridiculousness on display.
“Turbulence” begins by showing the CEO of a company called Krieger signing off on several employee layoffs for the company. The CEO is an American named Zach (played by Jeremy Irvine), who is in his 30s, and it’s revealed later in the movie that he inherited the company from his father. The movie never states what type of industry Krieger is in, but it’s a very wealthy company.
The next scene shows Krieger having a company party in a conference room. Zach is one of the people in attendance. Suddenly, a man in his late 60s named Jens Fischer (played by Peter Gantzler) bursts into the room. Jens is one of the people who was laid off, and he’s very angry about it.
Jens pulls out a gun and confronts Zach by pointing a gun at Zach and shouting that he gave his life for the company. Zach begs Jens not to shoot him. Zach explains that he and his wife have been trying to have a child, but she recently had a miscarriage. Jens pulls the trigger, but he doesn’t shoot Zach. Jens shoots and kills himself, resulting in Zach being splattered with Jens’ blood.
After this shocking incident, Zach calls his wife Emmy (played by Hera Hilmar), who is at their home in Los Angeles. The first indication that “Turbulence” is horribly written is that Zach doesn’t tell Emmy what happened with a laid-off employee commiting suicide in front of Zach. Instead, Zach acts like nothing is wrong and tells Emmy that he can’t wait to see her. Emmy will be arriving in Italy to meet up with Zach for their postponed honeymoon.
On the night of this suicide, before Emmy arrives in Italy, Zach goes to a hotel bar, where he meets a flirtatious stranger named Julia (played by Olga Kurylenko), who makes a scene at the bar. Julia had asked the bartender (played by Alessandro De Cominato) for an olive, but the bartender told her that in order to get an olive from the bar, she had to order a drink first. Julia refused and started arguing with the bartender.
In order to stop the argument, Zach (who was sitting nearby) offered to buy Julia a drink. Julia and Zach begin chatting. He tells her that he’s waiting for his wife Emmy to eventually arrive in Italy for their delayed honeymoon. Julia seems curious to know more about the spouses’ relationship, but Zach doesn’t reveal any of the marital problems that he and Emmy have been having recently.
Instead, Zach tells Julia that he’s happily married, as a way to tell Julia that he thinks she’s trying to seduce him. Julia laughs in response and says, “Don’t be so presumptuous.” Zach also mentions that he and Emmy are going to spend a few days in the Dolemites, where they plan to take a hot air balloon ride.
The next day, Zach gets text messages from Julia, who demands €500,000 to buy her silence about what they did the night before. Zach thinks it’s a joke at first, but she persists. Zach texts her back to say that they didn’t do anything wrong. Zach’s last text to Julia says, “My lawyers are used to dealing with trash like you.”
That same day, Emmy arrives in Italy. And that’s when Zach tells her about the suicide. Zach doesn’t tell her about Julia. But in a tacky movie like “Turbulence,” Julia is not going to go away quietly.
Emmy is feeling down because of the miscarriage. Zach tries to comfort her by saying to Emmy: “You’ve got to stop feeling guilty. Take as much time as you need.” Emmy thinks they should go ahead with their scheduled hot air balloon trip through the Dolemites mountain range.
Their hot air balloon guide is an American named Harry (played by Kelsey Grammer), who tells Emmy and Zach that he’s originally from Chicago. Harry mentions that in addition to owning a hot air balloon business, he works part-time as a clown. Harry says he’s a “qualified clown” from “my days in the circus when I was a kid.” Harry being in this horrible movie is another reason why he’s a “qualified clown.”
Harry says a few other people signed up for this trip, but they haven’t shown up. Just as Harry, Emmy and Zach are about to leave in the balloon, someone else who signed up for the trip shows up: Julia, who says she’s sorry for being late.
Zach pretends that he’s never seen Julia before. But not long after the balloon takes off, things get uncomfortable and then downright nasty, as Julia confronts Zach and accuses him of having a sexual one-night-stand with her. Zach vehemently denies the accusation.
The rest of “Turbulence” turns into a moronic “Fatal Attraction”-type soap opera in the air, but not with a “Fatal Attraction” ending. Julia has a knife, and there are physical fights on the hot air balloon. But the idiocy of Zach and Emmy knows no bounds.
For example, at one point Julia gets knocked unconscious, but none of the people on board the hot air balloon thinks about taking her knife. And when she regain consciousness, you know exactly what she’s going to do. All of the fights on the balloon look incredibly phony because of the atrocious acting and unconvincing visual effects.
Another example of a foolish decision is when the hot air balloon becomes uncontrollable and goes way off course. Emmy decides they should lighten the weight of the balloon, so she throws overboard the backpacks that she and Zach brought with them—the same backpacks that have all their food and water. She could’ve kept the food and water and thrown out everything else that was dead weight.
Meanwhile, the balloon gets damaged and has its fuel fire extinguished multiple times, but the laws of physics don’t exist in the movie. The “Turbulence” filmmakers must think that people who are most likely to watch this film don’t know basic science. “Turbulence” doesn’t have much to offer except to show how not to make a movie that takes place mostly in a hot air balloon. Some of the outdoor scenery looks lovely, but that’s about the only thing that this movie gets right.
Irvine’s acting is wooden for most of this ludicrous flick. Kurylenko is too hammy, while Hilmar has a sleepwalking tone to her acting until the part of the film where Emmy suddenly becomes an expert in hot ballooning. Grammer isn’t in the movie long enough to make any impression except that he clearly did this junkpile movie for a quick salary.
“Turbulence” has a “plot twist” that isn’t as clever that the filmmakers think it is. In fact, it’s probably the most obvious conclusion, considering all the clues that were shown along the way. “Turbulence” might have been an enjoyable watch if there had been some level of campiness to the movie’s tone. But it’s a bad movie that takes itself too seriously, which is often the worst type of bad movie.
Lionsgate released “Turbulence” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on December 12, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the U.S. state of Georgia, the dramatic film “The Christmas Ring” (based on the novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A widowed mother searches for a precious ring that has been a family heirloom for generations, and her search leads her to a jewelry store owned by a father and a son, who have very different intentions for the ring.
Culture Audience: “The Christmas Ring” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the book on which the movie is based, and sappy romance movies that have low-quality filmmaking and unimpressive performances.
Kelsey Grammer in “The Christmas Ring” (Photo courtesy of Fathom Entertainment)
“The Christmas Ring” looks as authentic as a counterfeit trinket found at the bottom of a junkpile. This subpar, sluggish, and extremely predictable romantic drama belongs on the Hallmark Channel but instead was released first in cinemas as a blatant cash grab. This greed is the opposite attitude of what this treacly slog of a movie is preaching.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with a predictable love story. But when it’s made into a fake-looking movie where the would-be couple has no convincing chemistry, and there’s too much cringeworthy acting from most of the cast members, it all becomes a time-wasting bore. There is absolutely nothing about this movie that has any spark of originality or compelling performances.
Directed by Tyler Russell, “The Christmas Ring” was co-written by Russell and Karen Kingsbury. The adapted screenplay is based on Kingsbury’s 2025 novel “The Christmas Ring.” The movie takes place in the Georgia cities of Marietta and Columbus. “The Christmas Ring” was actually filmed in Tennessee.
“The Christmas Ring” begins with voiceover narration from Vanessa Mayfield (played by Jana Kramer) with black-and-white footage re-enacting something that Vanessa says happened during World War II. Vanessa explains that a young U.S. Air Force pilot named Bill Bailey (played by Kyle Kupecky) was shot down in France during his World War II combat. Bill discovered a ring on the ground and kept it as a sign of hope that he would make it out of alive.
This antique ring has a gold band with diamonds encircling a ruby at the center of the ring. The ring has one word inscribed on it. It’s the most obvious word in a romance story, but the movie makes it look like finding out this one-word inscription will be a big mystery to solve. When the word is revealed, it’s done in a hokey way that is very underwhelming in this no-suspense story.
Bill made it out alive from World War II, and the ring became a family heirloom. Bill was also Vanessa’s great-grandfather. Vanessa is the widowed mother of a daughter named Sadie Mayfield (played by Megan Ashley Brown), who is in her late teens. Sadie is the only child of Vanessa, who lives in Columbus, Georgia. Sadie will soon be leaving home to attend her first year of college. Vanessa’s late husband Alan was a U.S. Army medic who was killed on duty three years ago.
Three years ago, after her husband died, Vanessa accidentally lost the family heirloom ring when she went skiing with Sadie. Vanessa says in the voiceover that losing this ring was one of the biggest mistakes she ever made. She’s been looking for the ring ever since. Vanessa has used the Internet for her search. But she’s also been looking for the ring in the old-fashioned way: by going to stores and shops in person to see if they have the ring.
One day, Vanessa is in Marietta, Georgia, when she goes into a store called Miller’s Antiques. The store is owned by widower Harold Miller (played by Kelsey Grammer) and his widower son Ben Miller (played by Benjamin Hollingsworth), who is about the same age as Vanessa. Ben has no children. Ben’s wife Clara died seven years ago. Harold’s wife died four years ago.
Vanessa meets Harold and Ben during this visit. The shop doesn’t have the ring that she’s searching for, but romantic sparks fly between Ben and Vanessa, who find out that they’re both widowed, and they flirt with each other. Vanessa and Ben exchange contact information and immediately start having a platonic friendship online and through phone conversations. This relationship stretches for five months into the Christmas holiday season, when most of the movie takes place.
With all these widowed people in this story, isn’t anyone divorced? Apparently not, because divorced people just don’t exist in this faith-based movie that’s obviously targeted to audiences who believe divorce is a stigma. Vanessa’s two best friends are also military widows: Leigh (played by Jessie James Decker) and Maria (played by Debbie Winans), who are this story’s version of a gossipy Greek chorus. Leigh and Maria gawk and giggle like teenagers when they talk about Vanessa’s inevitable romance with Ben.
The movie is filled with dreadfully dull dialogue that can put even the most die-hard romantic to sleep. Howard notices Ben’s attraction to Vanessa and says to him: “For what it’s worth, Ben, your mother and I always believed you’ll find love again.” Ben says with all the romantic enthusiasm of a worn-down pencil: “I’m starting to believe it.”
Vanessa is reluctant to tell Sadie about Ben because Vanessa says Ben is “just a friend.” Leigh and Maria don’t believe that Ben and Vanessa have only platonic feelings for each other. Sadie is busy at college and has a military boyfriend named Hudson (played by Austin Robert Russell), who is on active duty. Hudson is still alive because he and Sadie aren’t married. If you’re one of the main characters in this story, and you’ve been married, your spouse is now dead.
Meanwhile, the long-lost ring ends up at a certain store, where the ring is set to be sold for $25,000. Both of the store owners find out that the ring is Vanessa’s family heirloom. One of the store owners wants to sell the ring. The other store owner doesn’t want the ring to be sold and thinks it should be given back to Vanessa. Again: Don’t bother looking for any surprises in this drivel. It’s all so basic and uninspired, it’s really an insult to viewers’ intelligence.
There’s also a subplot about Vanessa being the president of a charity called Columbus Cares, which is having its big Christmas fundraising gala. In other words, this is an event where you know some type of spectacle will happen involving the story’s couple who are afraid to tell each other “I love you.” It goes without saying that Ben and Vanessa have a very chaste romance, so don’t expect anything sexual or scandalous to happen in this movie.
A too-long stretch of “The Christmas Ring” is Vanessa’s monotonous charade of trying to prevent Sadie from finding out about Vanessa’s relationship with Ben, even though you know that Sadie will eventually find out before Vanessa actually tells her. Sadie isn’t an underage kid who needs to be “protected” from the realities of her widowed mother dating someone. Sadie is an adult, but Vanessa seems to think Sadie is too young to handle knowing that Vanessa might have a boyfriend. It’s all so tiresome and corny.
And then there’s the typical romantic story cliché of one person in the couple who wants the relationship to be more romantically committed than the other person, which leads to tensions, arguments, and a probable estrangement. This conflict will then lead to a dramatic moment in the movie where true feelings are confessed. And you know the rest.
“The Christmas Ring” is obviously meant to be a heartwarming holiday romance story. But the story and the way this movie was made is so cynical and lazy in how it treats its audience like idiots, it’s likely to annoy some viewers who can see right through this uncreative sludge. People who want to get into the holiday spirit are better off doing something useful for a good charitable cause instead of wasting any time or money on this bland and lackluster movie.
Fathom Entertainment released “The Christmas Ring” in U.S. cinemas for a limited engagement from November 6 to November 20, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on November 28, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the dramatic film “Wish You Were Here” (based on the novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Asians and Latin people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A restaurant worker and an artist meet and quickly fall in love, but their relationship is tested when he reveals a big secret.
Culture Audience: “Wish You Were Here” will appeal mainly to people who fans of the movie’s headliners and extremely sappy romance stories.
Isabelle Fuhrman and Gabby Kono-Abdy in “Wish You Were Here” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)
“Wish You Were Here” drowns in a cesspool of schmaltz and a manipulative plot reveal. It’s very possible for people to fall in love as quickly as the movie’s characters do, but none of it looks believable in this dull romance. The movie also tries to look like a modern love story, but many of the story’s ideas are stuck in an old-fashioned and backwards mindset that just because someone gives you a lot of compliments on a first date, that must be true love.
“Wish You Were Here” is the feature-film directorial debut of Julia Stiles, who is best known for being an actress who has starred in movies such as several Jason Bourne movies, 2001’s “Save the Last Dance” and 2019’s “Hustlers.” “Wish You Were Here” is based on Renée Carlino’s 2017 novel of the same name. Stiles and Carlino co-wrote the awful “Wish You Were Here” screenplay.
In “Wish You Were Here,” 29-year-old Charlotte is a bachelorette who is cynical about her chances of finding true love. She works as a server at a Mexican restaurant in New York City, and she dislikes her dead-end job. (“Wish You Were Here” was actually filmed in New Jersey and in Florida.)
On one particular night, Charlotte and her talkative best friend/roommate Helen (played by Gabby Kono-Abdy) are on the stoop of their apartment building when they meet painter artist Adam (played by Mena Massoud), while he’s walking down their street one night because he appears to be lost. Quicker than you can say “corny romantic movie,” Adam asks Charlotte out on a date, where they go to a local bar. After a lot of flirtation initiated by Adam, he invites Charlotte to spend the night with him at his loft apartment. She hesitates at first but then says yes.
During their date, Charlotte makes up a story about how she and Adam met five years ago and have been in a relationship all along. She adds details as the night goes on, while Adam plays along with this charade. It’s supposed to be cute and romantic, but it’s over-used to cloying effect in this movie. Adam heaps compliments on her repeatedly by telling Charlotte that she’s beautiful.
The next morning after their sleepover date, Adam acts a little aloof, as if he thinks he made a mistake by sleeping with Charlotte on their first date. Adam somewhat coldly tells Charlotte, “You’re not really my girlfriend.” Charlotte looks hurt but she’s trying not to let it show because she barely knows Adam and doesn’t want to be too clingy. Still, it’s obvious that Charlotte thought that she and Adam had something more special than casual sex.
Adam later tells Charlotte that he’s sorry for being so rude to her on the morning after they first hooked up. He starts romancing her again. On their first date, he asked Charlotte to help him paint a graffiti mural on a nearby street. As the relationship between Charlotte and Adam progresses, he adds more illustrations to this mural. The movie implies that Adam is doing well-enough in selling his art that he can afford his spacious loft apartment.
It doesn’t take long for Charlotte and Adam to declare their love for each other. But in a mushy movie like “Wish You Were Here,” Adam has a big tearjerker secret that he eventually reveals to Charlotte. Their relationship goes through ups and downs because he doesn’t know how to tell her this secret. The trailer for “Wish You Were Here” shows obvious indications about Adam’s secret, but more details are in the movie.
Adam acts “hot and cold” with Charlotte. Sometimes he’s effusive with his romantic actions and comments, while other times he acts like he doesn’t want to get too close to Charlotte. She’s also unsure if Adam’s neighbor friend Stacy (played by Jane Stiles), who lives in Adam’s apartment building, is someone he used to date. During all of the lovey-dovey talk between Charlotte and Adam, they don’t bother to discuss any past love relationships, which should naturally come up in conversations if Charlotte and Adam were a realistic couple getting closer to each other.
During a period of time when Adam is avoiding Charlotte, she decides to move on and date other people. Charlotte meets a nice guy named Seth (played by Jimmie Fails) on a dating app. On their first date, Seth invites Charlotte to watch him do his side job as a mascot for a non-NFL football team during one of the team’s practice sessions. Helen is there to keep Charlotte company, in case Charlotte’s date with Seth isn’t very good.
Seth’s best friend is a somewhat dorky guy named Roddy (played by Josh Carras), who is also at this football practice. Roddy has an instant mutual attraction to Helen. Within minutes of meeting each other, Helen and Roddy start kissing each other passionately in public. And after Helen and Roddy have their first date together, he asks Helen to move in with him, and she says yes. Helen gleefully tells Charlotte this news after coming home from the date.
“Wish You Were Here” is so badly written, there’s a scene where Charlotte comes home and sees a mover truck outside, with movers loading some of Helen’s things in the truck. Charlotte is shocked that Helen is moving out, even though a few scenes earlier, Helen clearly told Charlotte that she was moving out to live with Roddy.
Helen and Charlotte have a little bit of argument over Helen moving out because Charlotte feels like Helen is abandoning Charlotte. Helen and Charlotte were also co-workers at the same restaurant in the beginning of the movie. But Helen soon quits that job after moving in with Roddy.
And what about Helen’s share of the rent now that she’s moving out of the apartment that Helen and Charlotte were sharing? Not to worry, Helen tells Charlotte. Helen has arranged for someone else to move in and be Charlotte’s new roommate: Charlotte’s younger brother Chucky (played by Jordan Gavaris), who has a rocky relationship with Charlotte because Charlotte and Chucky get on each other’s nerves.
“Wish You Were Here” plods along with Charlotte being unhappy in her restaurant job, uncomfortable about living with Chucky, and worried about her relationship with Adam. Fuhrman and Fails are perfectly adequate in their roles, but other performances in the movie ether fall flat or are too exaggerated. Massoud’s acting often looks too forced, which is why the love scenes between Charlotte and Adam don’t have genuine-looking chemistry.
Characters in the movie are varying levels of annoying. Charlotte pretends to be jaded, but she’s really just a big romantic softie at heart. Helen comes across as flaky and hyper. Adam is more than a little manipulative in how he jerks Charlotte’s emotions around. But all is supposed to be forgiven as soon as Adam’s secret is revealed and he turns into someone who’s “destined” to have Charlotte’s love.
Jennifer Grey and Kelsey Grammer have awkwardly written roles as Charlotte’s unnamed parents, who worry that time is running out for Charlotte to get married and have children. Charlotte’s mother is more of a meddler than Charlotte’s father. Remember, Charlotte is 29, not 39, but this movie acts like she’s some type of “bitter old maid” who needs to find a man who can make her happy.
“Wish You Were Here” has too many romantic fantasies that shut out a lot of realities. For example, almost nothing is told about Adam’s family except when he briefly mentions his family to Charlotte after he tells Charlotte his secret. Charlotte doesn’t even seem curious about some basic things about her romantic partner that people who are truly in love would want to know about each other if there’s talk of them spending their lives together.
“Wish You Were Here” wants to be like a classic romantic film, but it just fizzles with formulaic sappiness where everything looks and sounds too contrived and fake. Much of the dialogue is cringeworthy and doesn’t sound like how real people would talk. As for Adam’s secret, it’s badly mishandled and shoehorned into the plot to make this dubious romance look like true love, when it actually looks like phony and misguided infatuation.
Lionsgate released “Wish You Were Here” in select U.S. cinemas on January 17, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in California in the early 1970s (with some flashbacks to the 1960s), the faith-based dramatic film “Jesus Revolution” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A troubled and wayward teenager finds his purpose in life when he joins a group of hippies who become born-again Christians.
Culture Audience: “Jesus Revolution” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching faith-based biopics that make real events and real people look overly contrived for the purpose of the movie’s agenda.
Jonathan Roumie (second from right) and Kelsey Grammer (far right) in “Jesus Revolution” (Photo by Dan Anderson/Lionsgate)
The problems with “Jesus Revolution” have nothing do with religion. This 1970s-set biopic drama about Harvest Crusades founder Greg Laurie has too many bad scenes with hokey dialogue and subpar acting. Many of the cast members are not convincing as hippies. It’s an unfortunate drawback to the film, whose very foundation is about how counterculture hippies in early 1970s California became Christian fanatics who were part of the Jesus movement that spanned from the late 1960s to the early 1970s.
Directed by Jon Erwin and Brent McCorkle, “Jesus Revolution” is a disjointed and somewhat rambling movie that can’t decide how much it wants to be a biopic (which it mostly is) and how much it wants to be a historical drama about a Christian youth culture movement that peaked in 1972. Erwin and Jon Gunn co-wrote the “Jesus Revolution” screenplay, which is based on Laurie’s 2018 memoir of the same name. The movie has a lot very corny and trite scenarios that don’t look authentic at all. If this movie had not been based on a true story, then this lack of authenticity might be easier to overlook.
In its over-reaching zeal to put a glossy spin on this movement, “Jesus Revolution” never adequately addresses how hippies who wanted to drop out of society and turned to drugs could then want to become part of society and preach against their formerly “sinful” lifestyles. “Jesus Revolution” makes it look like all it would take for people to change their lifestyles so dramatically in a short period of time is to attend a few services at a church led by a sympathetic pastor. “Jesus Revolution” also looks like it deliberately omitted a lot of unflattering information about Laurie during the period of time in his life that is depicted in the movie.
Greg Laurie (played by Joel Courtney), who is the main protagonist of “Jesus Revolution,” is shown in the beginning of the movie attending a Christian group mass baptism at Pirate’s Cove in Pismo Beach, California, sometime in 1971. Most of the people getting baptisms at this event are people in their teens and 20s. Greg is about 18 years old at the time. At Pirate’s Cove, Greg is being interviewed by a reporter named Josiah (played by DeVon Franklin) from Time magazine. Josiah asks Greg, “How did you end up here?”
The movie then flashes back to a year earlier, when Greg was a student cadet at a strict military academy. At the time, he was still living with his alcoholic, divorced mother Charlene (played by Kimberly Williams-Paisley), who pressured Greg to attend this school. Greg’s father abandoned the family when Greg was a very young child and has not been in contact with Charlene or Greg ever since leaving.
It’s not clear how long Charlene has been an alcoholic, but the movie implies that she went on a downward spiral after Greg’s father left the family. Flashbacks to the 1960s show that Charlene is often a neglectful parent who gets involved in several bad relationships. (Jackson Robert Scott has the role of an adolescent Greg in these flashbacks.) In real life, Greg Laurie’s mother was married seven times. He and his mother also moved around a lot.
In the movie, Greg keeps hoping that his father will come back to the family someday, but Charlene abruptly tells him not to bother thinking that Greg’s father will ever contact them again. When Charlene decides to move to California for a fresh start, Greg is upset because he thinks that his father won’t be able to find them if they move. Charlene and Greg settle in California’s Orange County, near Long Beach. By 1970, Greg is enrolled in a military academy and not liking it very much. He is a loner who doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere.
One day, Greg (who is an aspiring illustrator) is taking photos at a park when he meets a hippie around his age named Charlie (played by Nicholas Cirillo), who is friendly and very stoned. Charlie immediately notices that Greg has been staring at Charlie’s attractive blonde friend named Cathe (played by Anna Grace Barlow), so Charlie introduces Cathe (pronounced “Cathy”) to Greg. Cathe is impressed that Greg reads the work of poet/writer Allen Ginsberg, because she does too. It’s at this point in the movie that you know Cathe and Greg will eventually fall in love with each other. Greg is instantly smitten, but he’s insecure and shy, compared to confident and outgoing Cathe.
Charlie and Cathe invite Greg to a “happening” (a gathering of young people who want to party), which is taking place in Laguna Beach. Janis Joplin (played by Erin Schaut) is doing a concert on a beach. The concert looks very fake because die-hard Joplin fans know that she never did this type of beach concert in real life.
The way Greg goes to this concert looks very phony too. Charlie and Cathe show up outside the window of a classroom where Greg is. They tell him he needs to go with them to the concert right now. When Greg gets up to leave, the classroom instructor says that if Greg leaves, he can’t come back. Greg tells the teacher that Greg is counting on not coming back.
Meanwhile, a Christian pastor named Chuck Smith (played by Kelsey Grammer) and his devoted wife Kay Smith (played by Julia Campbell) are watching the TV news in their home and expressing disgust at the hippie movement, which they think is degenerate and the cause of lot of America’s problems. “They need a bath,” Chuck sneers when he comments about hippies. (In real life, Chuck Smith founded the Calvary Chapel movement.)
Chuck leads a Costa Mesa, California-based church that is struggling with a dwindling congregation. Chuck and Kay have a slightly rebellious daughter named Janette Smith (played by Ally Ioannides), who’s about 17 years old. Janette looks bored every time she has to go to church. Unlike her parents, Janette thinks “what the hippies are doing is beautiful.” She tells her skeptical parents that hippies want the same things that conservative Christians want: “peace and love.”
One day, Janette is driving by herself on a deserted road, when she sees a hippie in his 20s who is walking by himself. Because Janette is fascinated with hippies, she stops the car and asks this stranger if he wants a ride. It’s a very unsafe thing to do, but Janette doesn’t care, because she wants to get to know a hippie instead of just hearing about hippies from the media. The hippie says yes to Janette’s offer for a ride.
His name is Lonnie Frisbee (played by Jonathan Roumie), and Janette immediately brings him home, to the horror of her parents. Lonnie admits to Chuck that he takes illegal drugs for “spiritual enlightenment,” but Lonnie insists that he is also very religious and believes in Jesus Christ. It doesn’t take long for Lonnie to invite his hippie friends to go over to the Smith house without asking permission. (How rude.)
And then the next thing you know, Lonnie and his hippie pals are going to Chuck’s church, where Lonnie gives a rambling sermon while barefoot. Some of the congregation members are repulsed and quit the church when Chuck refuses to reject and ban the hippies. Chuck sees the benefit of having young people increase his church’s attendance, so he eventually learns to accept the hippies.
Meanwhile, Greg gets involved in taking drugs and partying a lot with Charlie and Cathe. He becomes part of Lonnie’s born-again hippie Christian crowd when he meets Lonnie by chance one very rainy night. It’s another scene that looks entirely fabricated for a movie.
Greg is a passenger in a car driven by Charlie, who is intoxicated from unnamed substances. The car is swerving on a street and narrowly misses hitting another car. Greg is so freaked out, he gets out of the car and runs away. And when he runs away in the rain, he sees Lonnie walking by himself on the street, which is apparently the way that teenagers in “Jesus Revolution” meet Lonnie.
The rest of “Jesus Revolution” is a predictable slog of Greg and Cathe getting caught up in the born-again Christian movement, where they recruit other young people. Lonnie becomes an important part of Chuck’s ministry. Greg joins a Christian rock band called Love Song. Cathe’s father Dick (played by Nic Bishop) disapproves of Greg because Greg doesn’t come from a “good family.” And there’s more family drama with Greg’s mother Charlene.
Of course, “Jesus Revolution” has lots of scenes of young hippies gathered in large groups and praising the Lord in ecstasy. Although the movie makes it look like it’s all a natural high, the reality is (as Lonnie hints at in the movie), a lot it was probably done under the influence of drugs. And that’s one of many reasons why “Jesus Revolution” doesn’t look entirely honest, because in the movie, realistic drug issues are either ignored or dealt with in a preachy manner.
Although many drug-using hippies no doubt gave up having a druggie lifestyle after becoming born-again Christians, the movie doesn’t really acknowledge that a lot of the hardcore drug-using hippies who became part of the Jesus movement didn’t just wake up one day and decide to quit using drugs. “Jesus Revolution” makes it look like all these drug-using hippies suddenly became clean and sober once they became born-again Christians. In reality, people’s lives are much more complicated than that.
“Jesus Revolution” also avoids acknowledging that although the Jesus movement preached inclusivity of everyone, the young hippies (almost all are white) who get the focus in this movie came from middle-class and affluent families—in other words, people who could afford to “drop out” of society or go to college and not have the responsibilities of a steady job for a few years. At one point, Lonnie says: “We’re all orphans. We’re a movement of orphans.” Well, a lot of these “orphans” had trust funds.
Chuck’s acceptance of these hippies into his church probably wasn’t as altruistic and spiritual as the movie makes it look. There was probably a financial incentive too. More congregants can result in more donations for Chuck’s church. A lot of these hippies might have been walking around in bare feet, but they weren’t poor.
There’s a very mushy scene where Chuck responds to some churchgoers’ complaints about the hippies attending church in bare feet. In order to prove that he has the humility of Jesus Christ, Chuck washes the feet of the hippies (just like Jesus did in the Bible) when they enter his church. Chuck goes from being a hater of hippies to being one of their biggest supporters in his community.
“Jesus Revolution” has a good selection of soundtrack songs, including Rare Earth’s 1971 hit “I Just Want to Celebrate” and the Doobie Brothers’ 1972 classic “Jesus Is Just Alright.” However, the movie just looks like a bunch of cast members playing 1970s dress-up (some of them in really cheap-looking wigs) and reciting their lines of fake-sounding dialogue. And ultimately, the movie looks more like a fairy tale than an authentic depiction of real people involved in a historical movement.
Lionsgate released “Jesus Revolution” in U.S. cinemas on February 24, 2023. A special sneak-preview event of the movie was held in select U.S. cinemas on February 22, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 2014 and 2021, mostly in New York City, the dramatic film “The God Committee” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A hospital committee has a limited time to decide which patient will get a life-or-death heart transplant; years later, one of the committee members ends up being involved in a controversial heart transplant experiment.
Culture Audience: “The God Committee” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in medical dramas about ethical dilemmas and won’t mind too much that there’s a far-fetched sci-fi aspect to the film.
Julia Stiles and Kelsey Grammer in “The God Committee” (Photo by Matt Sakatani Roe/Vertical Entertainment)
The medical drama “The God Committee” has enough gripping suspense that it didn’t need a futuristic subplot about experiments to use pig hearts in heart transplants for humans. Although this type of medical advancement could happen in an unknown future, it’s a part of the movie that’s an unnecessary distraction from the real story: the debates and dealings that go on behind the scenes when medical committees decide which people deserve organ transplants the most.
Austin Stark directed and wrote the screenplay for “The God Committee,” which is based on Mark St. Germain’s play of the same name. Stark does an admirable job of making this story as cinematic as possible, with numerous realistic set pieces and compelling cinematography by Matt Sakatani Roe. There’s nothing in this movie that looks like a theater stage at all.
“The God Committee,” which is set mostly in New York City, jumps back and forth in time between two years: 2014 and 2021. The movie opens in Buffalo, New York, in 2014, when 18-year-old Eli Gurny (played by Daniel Taveras) is shown being accidentally hit and killed by a car while riding his bicycle on the street. He was a healthy organ donor, and his heart has been made available in November 2014 to an unnamed hospital in New York City.
Dr. Andre Boxer (played by Kelsey Grammer), an influential and arrogant surgeon at the hospital, has been told that one of his patients has priority to get the heart. The patient’s name is Selena Vazquez (played by Patricia Mauceri), a widowed grandmother who desperately needs a heart transplant to stay alive. She’s already been told that she’s getting this new heart, so she’s relieved and elated.
However, Dr. Boxer has other plans for that heart, and he shares this information with his much-younger secret lover, another doctor who works at the same hospital. Her name is Dr. Jordan Taylor (played by Julia Stiles), who hasn’t been working at the hospital for very long. Dr. Taylor and Dr. Boxer, who are both unmarried, have agreed to keep their fling a secret because they don’t want it to taint their professional reputations.
The morning after Dr. Boxer and Dr. Taylor have spent the night together at his place, Dr. Boxer tells her that he’s not going to let his patient Selena Vazquez have the young, healthy donor heart that she was promised, because Dr. Boxer thinks that Selena is too old to deserve this heart. Dr. Taylor reacts with dismay and disgust, but Dr. Boxer has already made up his mind. It’s the first sign that Dr. Boxer has a “god complex,” where he knows that he has considerable power to make life-or-death decisions.
Dr. Taylor isn’t just disappointed with Dr. Boxer for this decision. She also seems to want more from the relationship than he’s willing to give her: possibly some real love or at least enough respect to act like he’s not embarrassed to be seen with her in public. When Dr. Boxer drives himself and Dr. Taylor to the hospital, he makes sure to drop off Dr. Taylor far enough away from the hospital entrance, to minimize the chance that any co-workers will see that Dr. Boxer and Dr. Taylor took the same car to work. She reacts by saying in an exasperated tone about their secret relationship: “Boxer, the only person I’m silently judging on in this—whatever this is—is myself.”
Now that Dr. Boxer has made up his mind that his patient Selena Vazquez won’t get the heart, who will get this organ transplant? Most of the movie is a riveting debate among the five people on the hospital’s organ transplant committee who will vote to make the decision. Dr. Taylor is the committtee’s newest member, who will be replacing Dr. Boxer on the committee, much to Dr. Boxer’s annoyance. He’s being replaced because he had already announced his resignation from the hospital to join the private sector.
Dr. Boxer had no say in who would replace him on the hospital’s organ transplant committee. He doesn’t hesitate to let Dr. Taylor and other colleagues know that he doesn’t think Dr. Taylor is a good choice to replace him on the committee because he doesn’t think she has enough experience as a doctor to make organ transplant decisions. Needless to say, it’s very easy to see that the fling between Dr. Taylor and Dr. Boxer isn’t going to last much longer.
Dr. Boxer won’t have long to complain about Dr. Taylor replacing him on the committee, because he will be leaving the hospital in December 2014, just one month after the committee makes the decision about who will get Eli Gurny’s donated heart. In the movie’s scenes that take place in 2021, viewers see what Dr. Boxer was doing for work after leaving the employment of the hospital: He became the lead scientist for an experiment called X-Origins, which would allow organs from different species to be transplanted into each other.
Back in November 2014, the issue of who will get Eli Gurny’s donated heart will be decided in a matter of a few hours. The five people on the organ transplant committee are:
Dr. Boxer, who is stubborn and the most hardline about making decisions based on science, statistics and logic, not sentiment or emotions.
Dr. Taylor, who is compassionate and open to take other factors into consideration besides science, statistics and logic. She also thinks ethics are essential in making her decision.
Dr. Valerie Gilroy (played by Janeane Garofalo), a tough-talking bureaucrat, who is well-aware of the financial problems that the hospital is facing. She’s also feeling pressure because a national medical publication recently downgraded the hospital’s rating, and she wants to bring the rating back up.
Nurse Wilkes (played by Patricia R. Floyd), a somewhat gossipy and very outspoken person, who is most likely to know a patient’s day-to-day actions in the hospital and the most likely to let a patient’s personality be a factor in her decision.
Dr. Lau (played by Peter Kim), a psychiatrist who is very analytical and is the least-talkative committee member.
A sixth member is normally part of the committee, but that person is unvailable. However, a sixth person will be sitting in, but not voting, on this committee’s deliberation over who will get Eli Gurny’s donated heart. This sixth person is Father Charlie Dunbar (played by Colman Domingo), who has been a priest for only three years. Before becoming a priest, Father Dunbar was a defense attorney for 15 years, and he was married.
Father Dunbar’s purpose for sitting in on this meeting is to provide any advice or opinions if anyone on the committee is struggling with moral or ethical issues in making their decision. He’s there because the hospital’s board of directors felt it was necessary that morality and ethics should not be overlooked when making these life-or-death decisions, in case any outside people question the committee’s decisions. Father Dunbar is available to counsel the committee members as a group and on an individual basis.
Dr. Boxer strongly believes that religion or spirituality should play no role in the committee’s medical decisions, so he thinks that Father Dunbar has no business sitting in on any of the committee’s meetings. There’s nothing Dr. Boxer can do about it though except try to ignore what Father Dunbar has to say. Dr. Boxer and Father Dunbar predictably clash during this committee deliberation.
Later, it’s revealed that Father Dunbar left the legal profession under a cloud of suspicion and scandal before he became a priest: He was disbarred in 2006 for doing something illegal that isn’t fully explained in the movie. And he avoided prison by “finding God” and cutting a deal with the district attorney. You can bet that this scandal will be brought up when the inevitable arguments happen during these committee meetings.
There are three patients at the hospital who’ve been moved to the top priority list to get the next available heart transplant. The problem is that due to a shortage of available hearts, only one can get an immediate transplant, and that person will get Eli Gurny’s heart. The other two patients will have to wait for a heart transplant for an undetermined period of time.
The three patients whose future health will be decided by this committee are:
Trip Granger (played by Maurizio Di Meo), a 30-year-old scion who hasn’t done much with his life but party a lot and live off of his rich father’s money. Trip is a recovering drug addict who has recently been admitted to the hospital after having a heart attack. If the toxicology reports find that his heart attack was drug-related, he will be ineligible for the heart transplant, because he’s been hospitalized before for overdosing on cocaine.
Walter Curtis (played by Kyle Moore), a 48-year-old married father who has a steady job, which he needs to help support his family. Those factors are to his advantage in getting the committee members to vote for him. However, what works against Walter is that he’s overweight and bipolar, which are two factors that make some of the committee members think he won’t be a good risk for the heart transplant.
Janet Pike (played by Georgia Buchanan), a 59-year-old wealthy widow with no children and no living relatives. To her advantage, she doesn’t have any problems with her weight or mental health. But to her disadvantage, she doesn’t have a support system of family members; a younger candidate could be considered a better option; and she has expressed resistance/hesitation in the past about getting an organ transplant.
There are more than just statistics that factor into the decision making, so there are plenty of arguments and debates on the committee. Trip’s wealthy mogul father Emmett Granger (played by Dan Hedaya), who accompanied Trip when Trip was taken to the hospital’s emergency room, has met with Dr. Gilroy privately and made a very tempting offer: He’s told her that his non-profit Granger Foundation is willing to donate $25 million to the hospital if Trip gets the heart transplant.
It’s money that the hospital desperately needs for important equipment upgrades and other improvements. Dr. Gilroy is also eager to do anything she can to boost the hospital’s industry rating, which directly impacts her career at the hospital. But what Emmett is offering is essentially a bribe. And would Trip deserve to get the heart transplant, even if no money was being offered?
Certain members of the committee are leaning toward Walter getting the transplant because he has a family to support and he seems to be the most willing to get the transplant. However, other committee members express doubts about Walter because it’s revealed that Walter attempted suicide, before he was diagnosed with being bipolar. He has responded well to his bipolar medication since then, which some people on the committee think is encouraging, while others think Walter’s past suicide attempt should disqualify him, no matter what.
The main issues that certain people on the committee have with Janet are that she’s the oldest candidate, she has no family members, she’s ambivalent about getting an organ transplant, and one of the people on the committee describes Janet as a “bitch.” This derogatory name calling gets Dr. Boxer very irritated because he thinks that the committee’s decision should not be based on which patient has the nicest personality. Although she is wealthy, Janet has not hinted that she’s willing to bribe the hospital so that she can get the transplant, and it’s unlikely that she would ever make that unethical offer.
Trip has been unconscious since he was brought to the hospital, so no one in the hospital really knows what he has to say for himself about getting a heart transplant. But someone who knows Trip very well was hospitalized at the same time as Trip was: his girlfriend Holly Matson (played by Elizabeth Masucci), who has mysterious lacerations and bruises on her body. Because Holly is awake and able to talk, Dr. Taylor has an empathetic conversation with Holly to find out if Trip was using drugs before having his heart attack and to find out why Holly is physically injured. Holly seems terrified to say how she got her injuries, but she tells Dr. Taylor some important information that could affect how the committee members will vote.
The committee’s debate over who should get the heart transplant comes with some intriguing twists and turns. Many details, including Trip’s toxicology test results, are revealed that can sway people’s decisions. And each person on the committee brings personal agendas and biases. However, not much backstory is given on these characters because the movie’s main focus is on what these characters do in 2014 and 2021.
There’s an early scene in 2014, when Dr. Taylor is talking to a hospital colleague, who knows that Dr. Taylor’s mother is a well-known plastic surgeon. When the colleague asks Dr. Taylor why she didn’t become a plastic surgeon too, Dr. Taylor says she wanted to become an organ transplant surgeon because “I watched a friend from college die, waiting for a heart [transplant].” It’s implied that this tragic personal experience influences how Dr. Taylor thinks and acts on the committee.
What’s less interesting about “The God Committee” is the time spent in the 2021 scenes on Dr. Boxer’s lab experiments for X-Origins. It’s not spoiler information to say that one of the results of these experiments is that he discovers that a pig’s heart can be successfully transplanted into a human. Considering that this type of transplant is not medically possible in 2021, it gives “The God Committee” a science fiction tone that the movie doesn’t need.
There’s a lot more that’s revealed in the 2021 scenes about what happened to Dr. Boxer and Dr. Taylor since they stopped working together at the hospital. They are both still living in New York City in 2021, so there are scenes where they cross paths again. The decision that the committee made about which patient got Eli Gurny’s donated heart has ripple effects that have continued into 2021 and beyond. There’s a plot development in the 2021 part of the movie that’s a little bit like a soap opera, but it would be entirely plausible in real life.
If the “God Committee” had left out all the sci-fi medical experiments, it would have been a much better movie. It could easily stand on its own as an engaging medical drama, solely based on the dilemmas faced by the committee in deciding which patient should get Eli Gurny’s donated heart. Since it’s the main plot of the film and because all the principal cast members give very good performances, any other flaws of the movie are overshadowed by these assets.
No matter what scientific and technological advances there will be health care, “The God Committee” takes a fascinating and sometime disturbing look at the human foibles that are inevitable when human beings make medical decisions. Needless to say, socioeconomic factors are also directly related to what type of health care an individual receives. But the movie’s intention is to make people think more about which medical professionals get to make life-or-death decisions for organ transplants and how much power these people should really have.
Vertical Entertainment released “The God Committee” in select U.S. cinemas, digital and VOD on July 2, 2021.
