Avoid a disappointment. I like jazz. Thought this sounded like something I would watch, even if it isn't necessarily about jazz. Then I find out it's some hokey feel good bs about finding faith and I'm like "whew!" dodged a bullet there. If someone needs reaffirmed in their 'belief' it's because in the back of their head they know that an adult should give up believing in myth, and fairy tales.

I briefly wanted to give my two cents on this film, which I watched without any realization that it was a "Christian" film or having read the book. From the standpoint of an unbiased movie watcher, I found the framing device of the film to be just visually awful. The astronaut in space with the characters' faces photoshopped in, with typed words appearing in space... plainly put, it was bad. As was the hideous carrot and rabbit "traveling to the West Coast" scene. Such poorly placed/developed animated moments essentially ruined the presentation of the film's literary aspects with their artificial and hard-to- look-at appearances. My second thought is the lack of transitions in this film/strange delineation of time in correspondence with the equally strange depiction of college students ended up rubbing me the wrong way. The highly unrealistic and varying sense of time in this film just sent the viewer in all different directions. Along with the purely bizarre and two-dimensional portrayal of students, none of the illustrations of the college and its student body made any sense to me at all (I have never, ever come across an American campus like that, not even on the West Coast). One more thing about character development that bugs is me is that the protagonist is a person trying to cover up his past - but this motif is undeveloped, as the main character never really displays his "shame" of his past, and the film in fact skips over the ambivalence and confusion of his actual attempting to hide his former self. Actually, he seems like he fits in pretty damn well. (It's like the situation in Mean Girls, when Cady tries so hard to forget who she was that she actually does become one of the Plastics). Also, where's the conflict in this film? Obviously, it's not about the girl because she's always forgives him, and it's not about his Christianity because he seems to have quite forgotten about it over his year at college, and it's not about his mom's affair because she really only shows up twice or thrice in the entire movie. One other thing that annoyed me was how much the ending came out of nowhere - Don's emotional confession to Justin and his heedless cry for forgiveness for covering up his past, and his declaration that throughout the pot brownies, alcohol kegs and various activities that southern Baptists would frown upon, he never forgot about God. Interesting return to the "main idea" of the film. There are a lot of issues with this film, from the poor acting to the strange jumping around of themes and messages. Four stars for some well-shot scenes (the big party) and some comedic moments (the Christian/non-Christian debate).

This is a curious movie, not "Christian" in the usual cinema sense, but it features a character who was raised as a devout Christian then has all his beliefs challenged when he goes to college in about the most hedonistic place possible.In a "making of" extra on the DVD, the director is talking to cast members and extras and explains, a story of ordinary people in usual situations just doesn't make a very interesting movie. So in this movie the lead character, Don, must come from the most conservative Christian background possible, and he must go to college in the most liberal situation possible, to be able to draw out the contrast. It is a concept most us us realize intuitively, but is rarely stated so clearly by filmmakers.So here we have Marshall Allman as Donald Miller , a young Christian man in Houston, your typical very conservative Southern Baptist. He aspires to be a writer, so his not-so-conservative dad arranges for him to enroll in a college in Oregon known for its writing program. He arrives and finds a world that he never even imagined existed. Of course what we see is impossible to find on any college campus, but as was explained this draws the contrasts that results in Don rethinking everything he thought he knew.The movie is loosely based on the real life of author Donald Miller, who really was from Houston, and really did wander up to Oregon. But he was not a college student there, so the main of the story was simply created to make the movie.I can't say I would recommend this movie to anyone, I enjoyed seeing it for its quirkiness, but all in all it isn't an outstanding movie.

I had never read the book, however it is on my ever growing list. I had heard people discuss the book, seen it in the book stores etc but for some reason never read it. I was on a business trip in Westminster CO. and happen to be staying across the road from a Theater playing this movie. While my wife was in meetings I went to the movie.There is a wide amount of reasons why the movie was not more successful on paper. One being it was on a very limited number of screens. I am from the Tampa area, and do not think it was on any screen in this area that I could find. I think the reason many Christian people may not have embraced the movie is they possibly are confronted with pieces of themselves through the characters in the movie. When we are confronted with some of the idiot things we have done in the name of ministry, it is easy to see that some of them are on the same level as hitting a cross piñata, and having the prize be communion cuts. We could be confronted with the many times we failed in our walk and maybe hurt someone to the point that we caused them to Lose their faith. We are confronted with living in single parent households and the disappointment we felt when our parents our heroes fall to their demons and we realize they are not our saviors after all. Yet the movie takes us on a very hard, harsh journey and ask the question, where is, who is, when is, and what is God. And if we really seek Him as we walk this dangerous journey we call life, God will reveal Himself to us and ultimately restore us. I would recommend watching the movie not just as you would something like the Dark Knight or the Avengers, but as if you were looking into a foggy mirror looking for glimpse of yourself and what that means to you and your relationship with God. This is now my favorite movie!