Do You Believe? is the Best Faith-based Film I have seen

It occurred to me while watching "Do You Believe?" at a press screening that I was watching the best faith-based film I had seen. This movie, which opens nationally on March 20, has all the right ingredients to make it work in a powerful way. For one thing, the acting is top notch. I have seen too many Christian films that fall short on the production and quality side.

This film features Lee Majors, Cybil Shepherd, Ted McGinley, Sean Astin and Mira Sorvino. Their characterizations are all totally believable. Majors and Shepherd play a couple, J.D. and Terry, who live alone after losing their daughter some years before. Their daughter's room has been left untouched.

Sorvino plays a homeless woman who has been trying to find a permanent solution for her daughter and herself. She crosses paths with J.D. and Terry and an interesting story unfolds. McGinley is strong in his role as a pastor, Pastor Matthew. He is confronted by a man that carries a cross and it makes him truly search his own soul to examine if he has lived as if he truly believes in what the cross stands for. The following Sunday morning Pastor Matthew places crosses on the pews for his congregants. He preaches about the cross and asks his congregants what they believe.

Several vignettes form a story that comes together at the conclusion, in a bridge scene on a stormy night on a bridge in Manistee, Michigan where the movie was filmed. An automobile accident involving a woman that is about to give birth plays a major part in the film. It is the combination of the acting, the story, and the production values that make this viewing experience a powerful one. Majors is perfect as the crusty yet loveable J.D. and the stories all have resolution to some degree by movie's end. Moments of humor are peppered in at the right times in the film. The film features a little violence, with a man being shot and a bit of blood seen. But, essentially, it is a wholesome movie.

The theme of the movie is what Pastor Matthew calls the "God's eye view", the fact that God sees the big picture while most of the time we have a partial view of what is happening in our lives and in the lives of others. The movie powerfully portrays the idea that God will work on our behalf to eventually turn things around, or to at least show us a purpose in our tests and trials. This film will touch something inside of anyone who has ever lost a child, been down and out, or struggled with their faith.

I have read the accolades of others who have screened this movie and there is an agreement that this movie, made by the same people that gave us the popular God's Not Dead, is even better than that one. Ultimately, this faith-based movie asks us to make a decision based on this question: Do you believe?

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